The Perspective
by arin
Summary: The story of an adolescent human-Controller - a boy and his Yeerk. Runs parallel to the events of Animorphs #50-54. Explores gay issues with mild sexual content, mostly explores what it would be like to spend a significant portion of growing up as a slave of the Yeerk invasion.  SLASH
1. Yearning

Editor's Note: The events in this story run parallel with the events of Animorphs #50-54.

* * *

The boy looked amazing. Beautiful, smooth, milky-white skin. Dirty blonde hair and deep, adorable sea blue eyes. Dressed only in his underwear in the boys' locker room, I could make out the smoothness of his back, arms, legs. Two slightly oversized thumbs hooked around the band of his Fruit of the Looms - he was going to pull them down! I wanted to lick my lips in anticipation of the sight...

But then the Yeerk in my head moved my eyes back to the left.

«Damn you!» I cursed out, screaming in my own mind. «Must you consistently torture me like this?»

«Of course,» the Yeerk taunted. «How else am I supposed to have fun?» My hands went about the task of undressing my own body, and although it had been this way for months now, I felt the shame of the Yeerk gaping at my grossly undeveloped genitals, glancing back towards the blonde boy, Eric Campbell. He enjoyed taking the extra moment to make sure the Eric was actually looking in my direction before pulling my jock up over it. Part of me was embarassed beyond all comprehension. Part of me felt the fluttering of butterflies to think that Eric was checking me out, that maybe he wanted me as badly as I wanted him. None of me was able to express this.

Worse, the Yeerk knew everything I was thinking as soon as I thought it, and came to the same conclusions I did. «Yes... I think he /does/ like you. Perhaps I should encourage such a relationship, don't you think?»

«You lay a /hand/ on him, Yeerk,» I yelled, «and I'll...»

«You'll what?» the Yeerk sneered, laughing. «You'll do nothing, human. You'll do nothing but sit there and watch as one of my brothers slithers into his ear. And his last thought before he's infested will be that 'you' led him into it.»

I wanted, as I usually did, to cry with despair. But the tears wouldn't come, because my tear ducts were no longer mine. My body was no longer mine.

It was the Yeerk's.

My name is Christopher Windward. I am a human-Controller. What that means is that, living inside my head, wrapped around the neurons in my brain, is a small grey-green slug, barely six inches long. Could squash it in a second if given the opportunity. I want to, too. Desperately. But I can't. I try to blink, the Yeerk blocks the signal between my brain and my eyes. I try to pee, but it's the Yeerk who decides when my bladder is released. The Yeerk even chooses whether or not I get to stare at a beautiful boy like Eric Campbell.

«Sad human,» the Yeerk had told me once, «don't you see? You were always a slave. You allowed your mind to be locked down by him /long/ before I came along. Feel free to keep obsessing while I put the body to good work.»

The thing that stung so much about it was that the Yeerk was right. I was so desperate for Eric that I joined the baseball team just to be near him. But I wasn't ready to burst into glorious song over him and be the only openly gay twelve year old in Parker Middle School. So I suffered silently, until an older friend took an interest and got me to confess my secret. He said he knew an organization that wouldn't care if I was gay, that would welcome me with open arms. A place where I could truly know my place.

He led me to the Sharing.

A goody-two-shoes organization on the surface, the Sharing is just a front for the Yeerks to get new host bodies, like me. Now, a member of the Sharing, the Yeerk spent all my time talking my classmates and friends into joining. I had already betrayed two of my closest friends to the Yeerks, an unwitting slave in my own head. And now I was faced with the prospect that, if by some miracle of fate Eric really did like me, it would be his undoing. I was dangerous to him.

Almost fortunately, it was a moot point. The Yeerks were not planning on using me and my fellow slaves for coersion much longer. They'd grown tired of slowly, calmly taking over the planet. They were getting ready to start unleashing open war the likes of which Earth had never seen.

My Yeerk was pretty high up in the heirarchy - I got to hear things I didn't want to know. The most recent of which was that a few months ago the "Andalite Bandits" that Visser One, the leader of the Yeerk invasion of Earth, had been trying to catch for longer than I'd known the Yeerks existed, had finally been identified as human children. Classmates of mine. Friends.

Finding out about Jake particularly bugged me because he was someone I knew. Not like we were the closest buds in the world, but we both had an interest in sports and video games. I had told him about me, about how I felt for Eric. He genuinely seemed to care about how it was affecting me. He was constantly warning me to be careful who I trusted - at the time I thought he was just being concerned about some idiot beating the crap out of me for it. When I became a Controller he started making up excuses about why he couldn't hang out anymore. Now, of course, I understand why.

Thank God Tom's Yeerk is practically the Visser's best friend - anyone else would have been killed on the spot for literally living with an "Andalite Bandit" for over a year and not having noticed anything sooner. He was still kept on those chains for so long that I really thought the Visser was going to starve his Yeerk to death.

Jake disappeared less than a month before what would have been his middle school graduation ceremony. His parents told everyone that he'd killed himself along with almost a dozen other people over some stupid argument they'd had. Chapman held a silent eulogy for them at the commencement ceremony, his Yeerk barely able to hide the contempt he felt for them, knowing that they were still out there. I envied his other classmates - they were going on to High School, a less Yeerk-controlled one at that.

For me, eighth grade was starting no differently than seventh had ended. I still had a Yeerk in my head, and that was a big deal, of course. I didn't need the other kids picking on me, I had my own personal live-in tormentor. On the outside, the teasing I'd gotten from other kids stopped as soon as I joined the Sharing. Now "I" was teasing the new school losers, trying to pressure them into joining the Sharing as well. Being a member of the baseball team was still a small source of joy for me, but any time I got too happy about it the Yeerk was sure to remind me that I was only in it to recruit more of the team for the Sharing.

So far, the Yeerk hadn't tried to recruit Eric. But he enjoyed making me miserable so much that I knew it wouldn't be long. Seemed I wasn't the only one who noticed.

"So," my 'friend' Jason nudged me as we headed out onto the baseball field, "Got your eye on Eric, ey?"

My shoulders shrugged. "My host body finds him attractive," my mouth said, casually spitting my greatest secret out as if he were discussing my taste in iced cream. Not that it mattered - Jason was in no position to tell the world about it.

"Hmph," his mouth murmured, his eyes trailing from me to Eric in front of us and back again. "My host body has an old acquaintanceship with him. They did what the humans referred to as 'fooling around' a couple of years ago."

I'm ashamed to admit that my first reaction was not one of remorse for poor Jason, having his sex life strewn about by his Yeerk. No, my first reaction was much more base - Eric had had sex with a boy! That meant that he might be interested in boys in general, me in particular. At the very least he couldn't totally hate the concept of it all, not when he'd tried it.

Not that it's all about sex, mind you - actually, my fantasies about Eric rarely come to that. Usually I imagine us sitting on the couch in my living room, watching a movie after we'd just done our homework together. We're laughing and smiling as we find ourselves closer and closer together on the couch, and suddenly he puts his arm around me. "You're all right," he says sincerely, and those blue eyes of his just peer into mine as if we're seeing each other's souls. Oh, the delight of being so close to him, how -

My mouth laughed. "And my host starts ranting like a Gedd stuck in a power converter, Cylus! How sickeningly in love."

Jason smirked. "I know what you mean. Humans can be rather obsessive when it comes to matters of coupling. My host can sometimes become quite complacent when I allow him to view pictures of human females on their computer communications network. At those times he is almost voluntary."

My face twisted into a look of concern. "What about your host's parent?" he asked.

"She gave me a lecture once about it, but in the end she said it was better that I see it at home as opposed to 'out there'. Very interesting morality these humans have." Jason (well, his Yeerk, but I imagine that's clear at this point) gestured in Eric's direction. "I imagine he'd make a fine host for Timminn Six-Two-Four."

My Yeerk nodded. "I suppose." He smirked. "Are you suggesting I attempt to court him?"

Jason again nodded. "Minimal security risk, my host believes that he would not 'out' you, as he calls it, should he be uninterested. If he is interested you could easily talk him into coming to a Sharing meeting."

My Yeerk bit my lip in consideration. "Well.. I /would/ like to try this whole coupling thing the adult hosts talk about, but you know Visser One would be seriously crazed if he heard about me procreating, especially at my host's age. Humans frown upon that, it would blow my cover."

Jason rolled his eyes. "You don't study anything, do you? Two male humans can't procreate."

Several smart remarks ran through my head - my Yeerk was about to pick one and respond with it when we spotted Chapman coming towards us from the field.

"Despat," my Yeerk groaned, "So much for baseball practice." Chapman looked like he'd been given a three week pass to Disney world.

Jason shrugged. "Never much cared for hitting a ball with a metal stick anyway. Why, you actually /like/ it?"

"Uh, no," my Yeerk said quickly. "Just playing my host's part." It was convincing, I think the Yeerk even believed it himself, but I knew better. I could feel what my Yeerk was feeling, most of the time, and I knew the joy he'd felt the first time he hit the ball in my body.

«Perhaps you're right,» the Yeerk admitted, hearing my thoughts. «But Cylus wouldn't understand.» The Yeerk chose not to comment on the surprise and shock I was feeling at hearing him tell me I was actually _right_ about something.

"Jason, Chris, come here, please," he called out, dragging us away from the non-Controller members of our team, my heart fluttered and frightened as I noticed that Eric was looking on as we walked, his eyes focused on me in perhaps more than mere curiousity at what the Vice-Principal wanted. Well, not literally my heart, my heart was controlled by the Yeerk, but still, the feelings were there.

"Come on," Chapman said, motioning us back towards the lockers, "The Visser wants to see both of you."

We involuntarily looked at each other, our faces emanating our Yeerks' fear, but before we could voice their concerns, so to speak, Chapman cut them off. "Don't worry, Kandrona starvation is not right around the corner," he assured us. "You're being honored, rewarded as two of the Visser's most trusted lieutenants."

"What do you mean?" my voice asked in awe.

"There's been a battle," Chapman explained. "The human rebels were trying to recruit more of their own. Exas One-Oh-Six saw them on the monitor cams and led a battalion of Hork-Bajir against them."

"So the rebellion is toast?" Jason asked hopefully.

"No," Chapman said, some of his enthusiasm vanished - but only some. "They got away. But not before granting us a little something for our troubles." By this point we were back in the boys' locker room. Chapman easily pulled back the urinal on the far right, opening one of the Yeerk Pool entrances. It was a surprisingly quick trip into the corridors.

"Where's the Gleet BioFilter?" I asked curiously, looking back over my shoulder.

"Unncessary now; in fact it would be a hindrance." He turned back to face us, smirking. "Wouldn't want to be zapped by it after you started coming to the pool as dogs and birds, right?"

For once, our Yeerks didn't need to put up even the slightest struggle to control us. Four minds gazed out through two sets of eyes and, across even the division of species, had the precise same thought at the precise same time. "After /what/?"

Chapman smirked. "You heard me. We have the Escafil device. The Visser recognizes how loyal the two of you have been, how much you've advanced our cause here. He has chosen to reward you by making you among the first Yeerks to have the power to morph."

Well, my first story ever here - whadayya think?


	2. Morphing

Normally when I stand on the infestation pier, I feel the most overwhelming sense of relief

Normally when I stand on the infestation pier, I feel the most overwhelming sense of relief. For a single, precious hour, my voice is my own again. My /life/ is my own again. This time my Yeerk wasn't here to feed, though. This time he was being awarded the equivalent of a medal by his commanding officer. A being whose very breathing made me grateful that my bladder was not mine to lose anymore, because uncontrolled I'd surely have pissed myself in his presence.

If you've never seen an Andalite before - and, let's face it, you probably haven't - being next to any adult male is a little intimidating. The Andalite tail blade is twice the size of a human hand and at the end of a tail that's twice as long as our arms. The upper body doesn't demonstrate much in the way of strength, but the large horse-like body gives the impression that an Andalite could easily trample a person if they wanted to. Add the feeling of unchecked viciousness that always seems to emanate from Visser One in particular and it doesn't make for an occasion that one can truly call "happy", even if they are there for an honored reason.

«My lieutenants,» the Visser began, trotting up and down the line of soldiers on the pier. «You have been selected because you are most loyal among Yeerks. You have all accomplished much in moving forward the invasion of Earth. Your host bodies are also human children - just like the human children who currently mock and elude us.» One stalk eye swiveled to glare at Tom, who was standing on the edge of the pier with the morphing cube in his hands. He had looked almost cocky until that moment; the Visser's implied rebuke sent a chill up his spine.

«We have already given the morphing power to Yeerks with adult human and Hork-Bajir hosts, but my advisors suggest that these human rebels have managed to survive this long because they think differently from the established human organizations that we have studied. I believe this to be folly; excuses by ingrates who are unable to admit their failure.» Again, the Visser glared angrily in the direction of several present human-Controllers, including Chapman this time. Still, for the Visser, this was a good mood. «However, there is no harm in giving the humans as much trouble as possible. Find them. Use your hosts' memories of them. Do /not/ fail me.»

Speech ended, the Visser stepped back away from the pier and Tom started moving forward to the first of us, a sixth grade girl named Ulie. "Place your hand on the end of the cube," he said. She did, pulling it back after a moment. Apparently she received some kind of a shock or something, but she looked otherwise unphased.

Then, Tom approached Jason and repeated the instruction. Jason touched the cube more prepared, and didn't actually pull his hand back. But you could see his arm twitch. I could tell my Yeerk was a little nervous about being next, but he still nodded at Tom and reached my hand out towards the cube. When "we" touched it, a small shock, like a tingle, swept through my body. Of course, I didn't feel it as acutely as the Yeerk - I was merely aware of it, the actual sensation was his. But it was more goosebump than pain.

"Weird," the Yeerk muttered. Then he looked to Jason/Cylus and grinned. "Whole new game now, isn't it?"

Tom gave the morphing power to two more human-Controllers, a short, redheaded sixth grader named Rob and a fellow eighth grader named Eileen. Then he glanced us all over. "There are three birds locked up in the human feeding area. Acquire them by touching their bodies and focusing on their form. Then go out and get some practice at flying. Tonight we're going to do a sweep for the rebel camp; report to the schoolyard after dusk. Dismissed."

I didn't even get my moment to gloat. I didn't even get to form the thought coherently enough to recognize it as my own before the Yeerk blabbed it aloud, using my voice. "Sir," the Yeerk said, approaching Tom, "My host has expressed a new discontent. He seeks to use my morphing power to escape while I'm feeding in the pool."

Tom nodded. "Several hosts, including my own, had that thought. We're keeping the involuntary ones contained in Ramonite boxes while their Yeerks feed. There've been a couple of nothlits, but no major problems. Do you believe your host would attempt to make himself a nothlit?"

«What's a nothlit?» I asked my Yeerk - I'd never heard the term before.

«Someone who stays in a morph beyond the two hour limit,» the Yeerk explained. «More than two hours and a being becomes permanently trapped in the morph.»

The Yeerk didn't even wait for my thoughts on the matter - he knew them better than I did. "No, my host won't trap himself and he values his free time in the cages too much to run the risk of having us stun him every three days. He could be easily pacified by having him in a cage with another human." Privately, he added to me, «I bet you know /which/ human I have in mind, too.»

«You're not taking Eric, Yeerk,» I boasted confidently. «He's too smart to let himself be recruited by the Sharing.»

My Yeerk laughed silently in my head, a laugh that I could tell from our empathic link had no joy in it. «Haven't you been paying attention? It would be merciful on him if I _did_ manage to take him now. Soon the only humans without Yeerks will be _dead_ humans.»

The meeting wrapped up, my Yeerk and the other new morph-capable human-Controllers went to the feeding area for human-Controllers. Surely enough, in one corner of the room there were three birds in cages. One had the words "Peregrine Falcon" marked below it, another "Red-Tailed Hawk", and a third, "Golden Eagle". It was easy to see where the eagle and hawk got their names from, but the falcon was something I was left to wonder at.

I'm not an animal lover by nature, but I wanted to cry at the sight of them. The Yeerks had basically trussed the poor birds up. Beaks were covered with makeshift muzzles of clamped down steel. Wings were deliberately snapped in several places - the red-tail even had one burned off with a Dracon Beam. The air around the cages emitted an utterly foul stench, enough that even the Yeerk in my head wrinkled my nose in disgust. The tables nearest the cages were empty as no one was anxious to eat near it.

My Yeerk stuck my hand into the eagle's cage, closing my eyes as he rested my hand on it's flank. The picture of the eagle appeared in my brain, clear and strong as the Yeerk forced the neurons in my brain to concentrate on the image. That's one of the truly weird parts about being a Controller - not only do I have no control over my body, I also have to share thought space with the Yeerk. It's not that he can stop me from thinking what I want to think. But he can also make me think about /other/ things, whether I want to or not. One time, I seriously ticked him off because I told another human about some things he'd done against regulations - turned out that that human was host to Sub-Visser Seventy Three, and of course the Yeerk "overheard" the conversation when he took his host body back. So my Yeerk was placed on serving duty in the Yeerk pool cafeteria for three days. He spent the entire time making me think about eating the most disgusting things he could conjure up.

The image of the eagle in my head was peaceful by comparison. In fact, despite my expectations, he wasn't picturing it ramming it's talons into its prey and ripping the flesh off with its searing beak. No, he was picturing a nice, leisurely flight through the air. Riding a thermal and soaring, relaxing.

It was an appealing picture. Even when he opened my eyes and the sights of the Yeerk pool were once again in my field of vision, the fantasy held a small lure for me. Only when the other human-Controllers had finished acquiring their morphs and began talking about taking down the rebellion did I once again return to my self-pity and misery. Hearing them talk reminded me that the beautiful gift I was given, like everything else, wasn't even really mine. It was the Yeerk's. And like everything else in my life, the Yeerk was going to use my morphing powers to help enslave the rest of my people.

«Bitter?» the Yeerk taunted, sensing my thoughts as we walked up the stairs that led back into the middle school.

«Wouldn't you be?» I asked. «C'mon, we can morph now — you go human and I'll go Yeerk. Then you can see what it's like.» As soon as I said it, I felt a wave of uneasiness spread through his mind. I'd hit a chord. The Yeerk was bothered, somehow, by what I said.

Of course, my realizing that only made him more angry. «Yes, then _you _would see what it's like, human.» I waited for him to elaborate further, but he went back to ignoring me. And I went back to watching my sad, sorry life float by me.

Baseball practice was half over by the time we got back out there. My Yeerk and Jason's had made up a story about being assigned detention for pulling a prank on a teacher.

"Chapman laughed about it," Jason's Yeerk was saying. "We know from being in the Sharing with him that he's got a great sense of humor. He just said he had to give us detention so that Miss Pritchett would stop complaining."

"Wow," a boy named Cody pronounced, "I had no idea Chapman was that cool."

The idea of anyone thinking of Chapman as cool, Controller or not, was disturbing to me. I tried to say as much, which forced my Yeerk to clamp down more tightly on my brain while my mouth was saying, "Yeah, at the Sharing he's always laughing and joking with us, just like one of the gang. He even--" At this point I'd decided that I might as well try a fight, and the Yeerk actually had to struggle a moment to get me back under control before finishing, "even danced to Blink 182 with his wife the other night."

Whilst the chorus of "Ooooh" and "Wow" erupted from my teammates, the Yeerk took the moment to chastise me. «I hope you enjoyed getting that moment, slave, because you're going to spend a good solid hour regretting it!» Instantly my mind was a blur of jumbled images.. memories. Bad memories, all of them, from further back than I'd be able to consciously remember on my own. Being three years old and setting fire to the living room rug, burning my hand. Age ten, telling my older brother's girlfriend that he was seeing another girl as a joke and then feeling incredibly guilty, watching him cry for over an hour after she slapped him and stormed off. Age seven, having a fight with my mom in a department store and telling her I didn't love her anymore and running out.

The Yeerk was merciless. Almost an hour he replayed these images for me, made me remember all the horrendous things I'd done, seen, said. Even things I'd /imagined/ doing, seeing, saying. He knew me, knew me so intimately that his judgment of me was probably more accurate than anyone's ever could be.

Of course he didn't mind controlling me. Of course he felt okay with it — he was okay with it because he knew me, knew how worthless I really was and what little I'd done. I started crying and whining in my head.

Finally, the images stopped. I don't know what the Yeerk was thinking or feeling — I was still focused on myself. But after a moment I heard his thought-speak voice, more gentle. «Sorry,» he half-grumbled. A moment's hesitation, and then in a huff, he added, «You shouldn't try to test my control like that. Just… just relax for awhile.»

I ignored him as best I could, but that's not very well when you're a Controller. You can't think things about the Yeerk and hold your tongue — your tongue, figuratively and literally, belongs to your Yeerk. He listened to my feelings of anger and self-pity and despair at his words.

«Come on,» he said, «it's not that bad, is it? I mean, I understand you don't approve of the recruiting efforts. But your normal life… I'm not doing that bad a job, am I? We're well liked on the baseball team, our marks are good in school, your parents /love/ the way we keep your room--»

«Look,» I said testily, «what do you care if I'm happy or not? I'm just a lowly human, remember? Just your host. You do whatever you want.»

«I see. You feel insignificant.»

The statement outraged me. «WELL, WOULDN'T YOU?!» I screamed.

For a short time the Yeerk said nothing. I took notice of the world outside — whilst I was being tortured, baseball practice must have ended. I was back in my regular clothes, although "I" was again removing them, and with the other morph-capable human-Controllers from earlier. We were in the woods behind a field. The others were also stripping, the Yeerks' complete disregard for our humility apparent.

"Aren't we supposed to learn to morph clothing?" Rob asked the group.

"Eventually," Ulie replied, "but for now we need to concentrate on the morphing process itself. I've transmitted ahead, there will be five sets of clothing waiting for us at the Gardens by the time we get there."

«Okay,» my Yeerk said to me privately, «Let me show you something that will make you feel like you're soaring over the world.»

"Well," my mouth said, "let's do this." Instantly I saw the image in my head again, as the Yeerk focused my brain. «Eagle,» he whispered, more to himself than to me. And the changes began.

The first thing we noticed was that Rob was suddenly our height. A little bit more yellow than usual, but our height. Our nose and mouth started to curve outwards, hardening as it went. Our legs and feet also hardened, big, gigantic toenails jutting out of our toes as they merged together. It wasn't until the morph was almost complete that the feather pattern started to spread itself out, six particularly long ones acting as three "fingers" on each wing.

It was disturbing beyond all measure. My field of vision no longer seemed exactly "right" — I could see the other four Controllers, now also birds, but they didn't seem precisely where they were when I had human eyes. Beyond them, I could make out the school at the edge of the forest — although it was so far away and hidden by so many trees that my human eyes hadn't seen it. Breathing didn't feel quite the same, it was quicker and more erratic, and yet I didn't mind at all.

Something bothered me about where we were, though. Being too close to the ground was what it was. And with too many other birds of prey. What was needed was a nice, high perch, perhaps with a small stream near it. Nothing big, though — big bodies of water were trouble. They meant less prey and more volatile winds. Being more inland was safer.

We lifted off the ground and came to rest in a nearby tree, gazing down at the ground below us. There was prey, but nothing juicy enough to take a leap for yet. The smaller animals weren't worth it. Larger ones had enough meat to last the day. Higher. We needed to be higher, so we lifted up into the air. At first I thought my Yeerk had done it, ready and eager to be airborne.

My Yeerk? Oh, yes, right. I was a human-Controller in morph, not a true eagle. The thought helped me separate myself from the eagle's instincts. But I couldn't feel any of my Yeerk's emotions, the part of him he wasn't able to hide from me. He was still lost.

«Hey,» I said to the Yeerk, «Wake up.» Why I did that, I'm not sure. I could have enjoyed the freedom for a little longer. But my Yeerk snapped out of it at the sound of my "voice".

«Oh, right.» I felt him contact the eagle mind. Instinct told it to fly further from the field, further from the other birds of prey, towards a territory it could call it's own. The Yeerk was having a hard time overriding it. «Damn it, how do you control this thing?»

It took him a minute, but eventually he got it together. Got us turned around and headed back to where we came from. «Everyone still there?» he asked in open thought-speak.

«Yeah,» Jason's voice echoed, still sounding a little confused. «This flapping business is hard!»

«Just rest on one of these air patches up here,» Ulie said. «They're relaxing.» A red-tail soared past me and circled around.

«They're called thermals,» Rob amended, his peregrine falcon body arcing down into an amazingly fast dive. «WOOOOOOOO! Hah hah! Those human rebels don't stand a chance now!»

«Careful,» Jason said, «don't get /too/ cocky. They've got a lot more experience.»

«Who cares?» Rob shot back. «We've got strength in /numbers/ now. All those times they just morphed away from their injuries after all we did to them? Well, now /we/ can morph away from injuries too.»

Ulie's hawk made a "Tseeeeeeer!" noise from it's position above us. «If you don't watch for that tree, you're going to be putting that theory to the test.»

The falcon changed it's course a split second before it would have crashed into the tree. «Yikes! Okay, that was bad. But did you see the POWER in it? No wonder they could take a Hork-Bajir down in one of these.»

«Come on,» Eileen said. «Let's get to the gardens. I want to try out some of the tougher creatures this planet has to offer.»

It took us awhile, but we eventually formed into a loose squadron and flew out across the city, into the Gardens complex. There was already a landing pad for us — a completely enclosed exhibit space with a sign on it that said "Coming soon". A sarcastic Yeerk comment if ever one was made.

«Heh,» my Yeerk said privately, hearing my thought. «"Coming soon"… yes, I guess that could be a reference to our invasion. Your sense of humor always interests me.»

«Uh-huh,» I said skeptically. «Good to know you care so much about me as a person.»

We landed in the exhibit and demorphed. Once again I was looking at the world from my normal, human body. Sure enough, there were five sets of identical clothing waiting for us, proclaiming us to be on a Sharing field trip. This produced another laugh from me and, consequentially, from my Yeerk. It seemed like something Yeerks and humans had in common. Even in the midst of a mission, advertising the business was still a priority.

The Yeerks decided it would be fastest to split up, so they went about the task of travelling from cage to cage and, with the help of Controller park attendants, acquiring the animals inside. My Yeerk acquired a cougar for his battle morph, and I will say that at least he showed it the proper respect and awe as he approached it's flank and placed my hand on it. The trainer swore that it had just been well-fed, but that didn't make it any less fearful for me or the Yeerk. Reading my thoughts and taking my "advice", the Yeerk also decided on a koala morph, a mosquito morph (that one was practically an accident, the damned thing bit us) and a scorpion morph.

"There," he said out loud with my mouth, even though he was talking to me. "Let's see if those humans can take me now. Or even better, that Andalite they're always with."

"Andalite?" another voice exclaimed. The voice of a security guard. "You're one of them — the human rebels!" For a moment I became excited at the idea that this Yeerk might accidentally take my Yeerk down, hurt him or kill him. Me as well, yes, but that hardly mattered.

But my Yeerk just rolled my eyes. "I am /not, you ridiculous fool. I am Orkath One-Seven-Two of the Hett Simplat pool."

"But I heard..?"

"You /heard/ me mumbling to myself about taking the Andalites on now that I've acquired morphing capability. You can contact Exas One-Oh-Six if you must." The Yeerk used an authoritative tone, one I'd never really had, and certainly wouldn't have thought to use on a grownup.

But his fellow Yeerk backed down. "Very well, sir," he mumbled. "Move along."

«You /really/ underestimate me, human,» the Yeerk taunted as he moved away from the guard. «You should th..» WHAM! The Yeerk smashed into someone on his way out of the secure area, not watching where we were going. My body flipped over the poor victim, landing us on the ground. The pain was probably a decent amount - for him. I couldn't really feel it, of course.

«Yeah,» I gloated, «you're a real pro, aren't you?»

The Yeerk started to stand up. "I'm sorry," he started to say, "I didn't m.." He stopped and smiled slightly as he focused my eyes. "Eric."

Eric nodded, wiping his scabby knee clean of the dirt and blood. "Hey Chris. Fancy running into you here."

The Yeerk giggled at the wit. I think he said something else to me, too, but I didn't really register it. I was busy enjoying the view. The smile. For once he couldn't turn away, not without dropping the "good ol' boy" pretense that any Sharing member has to maintain.

"It's good to see you too, Eric," I proclaimed, the Yeerk making my voice sound a little shy. "You hit a great ball today."

"Thanks," he said. For a moment we just kind of stood there, staring at each other awkwardly. Finally he broke the silence again. "Hey, listen… are you doing anything tomorrow night? I was gonna take in a movie, thought maybe you'd, you know, want to join me."

I know the Yeerk had control over me, but I swear I felt my heart flutter anyway, in response to my own reaction of utter glee. Followed instantly by my utter turmoil as the Yeerk's manipulative, cruel feelings made themselves known to me. "Sure," the Yeerk said, "I'd like that. I think we should spend more time together than we do."

"Yeah," Eric agreed, a little more enthusiastically than I'd have expected. "I think it would be neat." Again, a moment of awkward silence, before he finally started moving away from us a bit. "So, well, see you tomorrow then," he said, waving sheepishly.

«Nooooo!» I cried, trying to will my mouth to scream out to Eric. I fought. I fought hard, with everything I had, trying to get past the roadblock between my brain and my mouth. The Yeerk didn't even seem to flinch.

"Right," the Yeerk said, waving. "See you tommorow." I waited for him to start the torture act again, but he didn't. He was all glee and gloating. He knew what I knew — that whatever he was about to do with Eric was worse for me than any kind of mental torture he could come up with.

«That's right, little human,» the Yeerk sneered menacingly. «All mine. Body and soul.» I wasn't sure whether he meant Eric or me. Likely both. And as I cried in my head, cried for the boy I loved and what awaited him, my tormentor was the only one who could hear me.


	3. Pondering

That night's patrol was uneventful - we scoped an area about three miles in all directions from the center of the Yeerk pool complex. Wherever the rebels were hiding, they were keeping their distance.

«Let's call it a night,» Tom's Yeerk finally declared after we were getting dangerously close to our two-hour time limit. «Tomorrow after school report to the cafeteria for sweeping duty.»

«I can't go tomorrow,» my Yeerk announced.

«He's got a daaaaaaaaaaaaaate,» Jason's Yeerk taunted, exactly the way Jason probably would have if he'd been able. His peregrine falcon did a couple of loops around my and Tom's golden eagles.

«Settle down,» Tom ordered. «Everybody dismissed.» The abnormal flock of birds-of-prey scattered, by incident, according to species. Rob and Jason's falcons flipped around and headed towards their homes on the south end of town. Ulie went off alone to the west, while Tom, Eileen and I banked east.

«See you at the pool tonight?» Tom asked me, flapping hard to get a little more altitude.

«Yup,» my Yeerk replied. «I'll be there as soon as my host family's convinced that I turned in for the night.»

Tom's Yeerk chuckled. «Some very unfond memories of having to go through that. Glad to be done with it.»

We flew on in silence for awhile. Being all the way on the west side of town, we had the longest trip to get back home. My Yeerk started doing what he always does when he's bored - rifling through my memories to see if there's some truly funny or insightful moment that he missed. Inevitably, he always stopped at the same one, and I was already cringing in my mind at the thought of having to relive it yet again...

_The bear was coming for us. It was HUGE! Long, sharp black claws on the end of long, furry brown paws. Teeth roughly the size of my middle finger. A standing height of almost eight feet._

_My cub scout uniform ripped against the side branch of a large oak tree. Ironically enough, my bear scout patch hung loosely from my now half-open shirt, then fell to the dirt and got trampled by my mud-caked Keds._

_I didn't even slow down to feel the gash in my ribcage._

_Next to me, just as out of breath as I was, was my fellow scout Craig. We were just innocently walking along on the edge of our campsite... oh, alright, might as well admit it, we were looking for a place to fool around without getting caught. We'd been making all those stupid eleven year old boy jokes about being in the "We-blows", one thing led to another... use your imagination._

_It seemed almost certain at the time that God was punishing us for our indiscretion. First we'd gotten lost in the woods and then, after an hour of searching for the campsite, stumbled upon the bear's cave instead._

_In my defense, Craig was the idiot who said it looked like a good place to get all touchy-feely together. I was just the idiot who followed him in._

_"We're gonna die, we're gonna die, WE'RE GONNA DIE!!" Craig kept yelling, screaming in terror as he ran. As if to taunt him, the bear made sure to roar in response._

_"Stop wasting breath!" I cried, picking up as much speed as my puny little boy legs would muster._

_Know those chase scenes in the movies? How the hero and the villian are always engaged in those real high-endurance runs but it's only thirty seconds of clipped film, maybe focusing on one and then the other back and forth?_

_Well, real run-for-your-life chases aren't like that. Real chases can go on indefinitely. Ours probably only lasted about four minutes or so, but that was still four straight minutes of non-stop, sheer adrenaline. Finally, it was clear that we weren't going to get anywhere - this bear wanted us, and bad. I did the only thing I could think of to do._

_I stopped running._

_Craig kept going for a few seconds, but stopped and turned when he saw I wasn't next to him. "What're you doing?!" he screamed in frustration._

_In truth, I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn't a brave person by any stretch of the imagination. I ran from bullies in school all the time. I had no idea why I was picking up an egg-sized rock from the ground and looking towards the bear, daring it to come closer._

_"Just get out of here!" I yelled, waving a hand dismissively back in Craig's direction. "Go or we'll BOTH die!" After a moment's hesitation, he finally took off again._

_The bear slowed as it loped into the area near me. It knew that one of it's prey had stopped, but it's weak eyesight couldn't pinpoint my exact location. So I threw the rock. Nailed it straight in the bear snout, which made it turn it's head straight at me._

_It wobbled almost through me, ramming me forward with such force that I felt my body fly backwards into the tree behind me. The pain was throbbing all up and down my right side, but it felt more numb than sharp. I could tell I'd hit my head. I could feel my consciousness ebbing away at me, but as I passed into what I thought would be my final sleep, the fear had finally left me, because I knew that I had saved Craig, and that made my sacrifice worth it._

_Suddenly I was awake and in the hospital. My older brother, about thirteen at the time, explaining to me that the bear had been tranquilized just as it was about to lunge at me again. That the scout leader had called a search party to look for me and Craig after we hadn't returned to camp. And that the search party was still out there, looking for Craig. He hadn't made it back._

End of memory. Back to the reality of the wind flapping beneath the wings of my morphed bird body. And the proverbial cold, whispered chills at remembering the terror I'd felt and the pain at knowing that my sacrifice had been in vain.

The Yeerk knew how I felt about the memory, but with his usual indifference he brushed aside my discomfort for the sake of his own sick impulses. I was never quite sure what it was - curiosity, perhaps? Pleasure at seeing me squirm? Something he was trying to understand?

He knew that I wondered, but he chose not to share his thoughts. He had that luxury. He could keep secrets while I could not. All I was privy to were his emotions, and those seemed almost completely alien to me. He wasn't feeling pleasure, but he didn't seem confused either. Just... thoughtful. Somber.

I returned my focus to what was visible from the golden eagle's acute eyes. It was aware of my house, below and to the left of us, maybe a few blocks away. The Yeerk brought the eagle into a dive and swooped down low, perching on my bedroom windowsill. "I" always kept it open partway, the fresh air particularly appealing to me. The Yeerk had no trouble ducking under the crack and getting into the room. We demorphed and he pulled out another set of my clothes and dressed me.

Just in time, too - he was just pulling the T-shirt over my head when my Mom entered from the hall with a basket of my laundry.

"Oh!" she yelped, startled. "When did you get home? I didn't even hear you come in."

My Yeerk made my mouth chuckle. "Geez, Mom, I've been here for awhile. Even did my homework."

My mother patted me on the head. "Such a good boy," she muttered, half to herself. I felt a surge of pride come from the Yeerk at her praise, and it made me angry. Her compliment was meant for me, not him. He had no right to take any joy in it.

«Nonsense,» the Yeerk said, detecting my thoughts as always. «She compliments me on the way I keep your room and the way I do your work in school. She approves of me. I bet she'd approve of me even if she knew I wasn't you.»

«You're dreaming, Yeerk. She would kill you for what you've done to me.»

I deliberately ran through one of my old fantasies, a dream I'd had when I was first caught. My Yeerk sitting at the dinner table, thinking everything is okay, when suddenly my family grabs him and tells him that they figured it out. They hold my head down on the table and, with the hose of a vacuum cleaner, vacuum the Yeerk straight out of my brain and then hug the heck out of me.

It was a stupid fantasy. It wasn't likely to come to pass. But the Yeerk always felt just the slightest twinge of discomfort when I imagined it, and I could enjoy that, at least.

To spite me, I heard the Yeerk say "I love you, Mom. I'm so glad you approve of me. I'd never want to do anything that didn't make you proud."

"Oh, honey," my Mom cooed, giving my body a long, affectionate squeeze whilst my Yeerk laughed smugly at me. "You know I'll always love you. No matter what."

Another fantasy popped into my head, this one having nothing to do with the Yeerk. It was me, sitting with my mother on one side of me and Eric on the other. I was holding his hand in mine and telling my mother that we were boyfriends, that we planned on spending the rest of our young lives together. And my mom, filled with tears of joy that I could feel that way about another human being, repeating the words I'd just heard.

«I could tell her now,» my Yeerk said to me privately.

I exploded.

«You'd like that, wouldn't you, Yeerk! You'd like to see my mother turn against me, maybe even kick me out of the house! Would SERVE YOU RIGHT! Then, at least, they wouldn't have to deal with YOU and your SICK, TWISTED KIND anymore!»

I hadn't been paying attention to his emotions - if I had been I'd have realized that he wasn't taunting me, but instead sincerely offering to help me with something I was afraid to do. Worse, my words had stung him. I could feel that what I'd said had genuinely hurt the Yeerk.

But by the time I'd started to feel remorseful, he'd already started to be angry. «If they /did/ kick us out, it would be because YOU were the one that was disgusting to them, not me! It'd be no sweat to me. I'd be taken in by my brother Yeerks. /They/ don't abandon their own, unlike you drivelling humans. I'd be fine. Better than fine, because I wouldn't have to keep up this pathetic pretense of humanity anymore!»

His words had an effect on me, but I refused to let them sink in. If I didn't acknowledge it, I rationalized, he wouldn't be aware of it. I guess part of me believed it. But the truth is, I was just being prideful. I couldn't just let him slur my people like that, not after what I'd seen of Yeerk society. «"Brother" Yeerks?! HAH! You've got to be kidding me. Visser One practically incinerated every Yeerk in the pool last time Jake and the others had been there!»

«Did you humans not have "friendly fire" in your last war? The human rebels are a menace, a threat to the peaceful coexistence of Yeerk and human. People like them are the reason that we're going to have to take this planet forcefully.»

«Riiiight,» I sneered, «Because your /original/ plan was to go door to door and just /ask/ the humans, right?»

«We're /saintly/ compared to you humans. Do you know what it's like for me? When you - we - eat cows and lamb and fish, I feel the pain of knowing that they were once living, breathing creatures. That they had hearts, minds. Hopes and desires and fears. I feel all that, but I know that the creature had to be killed so that my host, /you, could live. And you want to talk to me about wrongdoing?»

"Honey, did you hear me?" my mom asked, looking at me with concern.

We both realized that we'd been staring blankly out at the world whilst we were arguing. By the time I saw my chance to grab for control of the body, though, the Yeerk was already using my mouth to say "Sorry, mom, I was just thinking about something. When's dinner?"

"Soon as you're ready to come down, honey. I'm about to take it out of the oven now." She still gave me that momentary look of worry before turning around and walking down the stairs.

My mom always worries when she thinks my life is going less than perfectly. I think it's just because she wants me to be happy. There was a time when she'd push, wanting to know what I was thinking and feeling. Wanting to help solve every problem, right every wrong in my life. It was a source of tension between us for a long time.

My Yeerk put a stop to that. He explained to her exactly what I'd been thinking and feeling - that much as I knew she loved me, she couldn't solve everything for me, and I had to deal with some of my problems on my own so that I could feel the pride of getting /past/ them on my own. He explained it exactly the way I would have, had my voice still been my own - or had I had the courage to do it before he came along. And he assured her that he'd always come to her if he felt like he couldn't hash it out on his own, and that he always valued her opinion.

I told myself that he'd only done it so that she wouldn't question his trips to the Yeerk pool or his activities at the Sharing or elsewhere. But it still made it all so incredibly clear - he was better at living my life than I was. He'd said what needed to be said to make my mom back off a little bit while still letting her know she was useful. When and if I'd ever gotten around to it, I'd probably have started a fight.

And tommorow night, he was going to take Eric out on "my" first date ever. And he was going to do /that/ better than I would have done it, too. I was useless.

Useless.

I could feel the Yeerk listening to my thoughts, absorbing my new beliefs about myself. Strangely, my feelings bothered him. He offered no words of comfort, though. He merely joked with my family over dinner, and put up with my big brother's abuse, and asked my mom how her day at work was, and helped her clear the dishes and wipe down the counters afterwards. And as he put the last plate away and said he was going to turn in for the night, and kissed my mom on the cheek and told her that my dad would be proud of her if he were alive, and she cried those tears of joy and gratitude at his pretentious affections, I watched and studied. Perhaps he lived my life better now. But someday, if by some chance I became a free person again, I was going to remember the things he said that made my family proud and happy. Someday, if I was lucky, I might get the chance to say them myself.

And I was going to _mean_ them.

--

Short part, I know. I was going to wait until the next one was done and post both, but this was posted by popular request. Thanks for those reviews so far, good to know I'm doing good!


	4. Struggling

The Yeerk spent the time listening to Billy Gilman's "One Voice" CD, waiting for my mother and brother to go to sleep

The Yeerk spent the time listening to Billy Gilman's "One Voice" CD, waiting for my mother and brother to go to sleep. Yes, I know, you probably think I'm the biggest loser in the world for liking country music (Jake himself had once said that he didn't have any qualms about my being gay, but the country music had to go). But some of the messages in the young singer's songs used to make me feel a little bit less lonely. I guess they still did, in a way, even though now my loneliness was due to a different type of isolation.

He liked the music too. He wasn't going to readily talk about it, but it was clear from my contact with his emotions that he liked /something/ about laying in the dark of my room, hands behind my head, listening to the soft, smooth voice of the artist cutting softly into the silence. I had the irrational thought that he was listening to songs about partnership and togetherness as his own aloof way of making peace after the fight we'd had.

I could almost have been happy with him. But it's kind of hard to feel a sense of peace with someone who still keeps you as a slave. Hard to accept an outstretched hand that's still, metaphorically speaking, holding a gun.

Finally the time had come — the Yeerk's hunger was starting to bother him too much to wait any longer. He shucked off my clothing — leaving my underwear on this time — and began morphing. The first time he did it the underwear slipped right off the slimming eagle waist, but he reversed the morph and tried again, and the second time the fabric started to meld in with the appearing feather patterns across my skin.

It was a small relief to know that I'd have some small shred of dignity left when I was standing on the infestation pier. «Thank you,» I said softly, acknowledging that the Yeerk had at least done /something/ for my benefit.

He didn't respond at first. Finally he said, «Hey, just don't tell Tom about it, okay? I don't need Exas thinking I'm getting host-happy.»

Host happy. What the Yeerks call a Yeerk whose attachment to his, hir, or her host has become something other than professional. (Yeerks have three genders, unlike most species — I always thought it must be cool to have three parents, until I learned that parent-Yeerks literally die in the act of procreation. Each trio creates an entire new subpool of Yeerks, almost a thousand. However, because of the mortality of birthing, only about three in three hundred Yeerks actually procreate in their lifetime. My Yeerk refused to tell me whether he was a boy, girl, or "mixer", so I'd just taken to calling him a boy because /I/ was a boy, and my body was his.) It was distinctly shunned behaviour in Yeerk society, particularly Visser One's branch of it. Host bodies were always to be considered sub-Yeerk.

I could understand that. The Council of Thirteen needed to justify to the people that what it was having them do — conquer species after species — was justified. So by making their hosts unequal, inferior to them, they could justify controlling them.

I wished I couldn't understand. But in this respect, Yeerks were acting almost human. Humans had those thoughts all the time — about blacks and women at one point, and about children right up until the present.

It did my heart good to know that the human rebels were all children. It meant that, if we humans did win this war, the adults of the world would finally have to acknowledge that experience, while undoubtedly important, did not by itself dictate who was a valid person with rights and who needed to be "protected" by having others do their thinking for them.

«I won't tell,» I assured my Yeerk. Then I took it a step further. «You know, I can't say _everything_ about having you in my head is bad. I certainly object to you having total control over us, but you can be good company sometimes. If things were different… who knows? Maybe we could even have been friends.»

The Yeerk half-laughed. «I doubt it,» he said, trying to put up the tough Yeerk act. But I knew differently. I could feel that my words had touched him, made him feel a little bit better. Which meant that some part of him, at least, felt guilt about what he was doing to me.

Into the school cafeteria we went, through an open window. Across to the boys' locker room. We demorphed there and the Yeerk opened up my locker and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt to supplement the underwear we'd morphed. Then we went into the Yeerk pool through the urinal entrance, and stepped up to the feeding pier. The screams of the human and Hork-Bajir in the background were long-since faded out to both me and my Yeerk, but I noticed them a little bit more this time. Which meant that he was focusing on them a bit more.

"Morph-capable involuntary," he announced to the Hork-Bajir at the pier as he stepped up to the back of the line.

"Iglaash, need stun?" the Hork-Bajir asked, his leathery hand going to his Dracon Beam.

The Yeerk shook my head. "Ramonite Box Seven." My head turned left, and I noticed a row of gray boxes lined up behind the cages in that area. One of those was to be my home for the next hour.

There were three hosts in line in front of us — a Hork-Bajir female, who bellowed quite loudly when her Yeerk dropped into the pool, a human male, who went over to the section for voluntary Controllers after depositing his Yeerk, and a human female child, who curtsied to the Hork-Bajir politely after she was freed and then ran like hell until one of them snagged her and tossed her in a cage.

My turn came. My Yeerk leaned down over the pier and bent my head over the sludge. «See you soon,» he said, before I felt him squiggling along out my ear canal. And then I turned my eyes upwards towards the Hork-Bajir guards.

/I/ turned my eyes. By my own will. I stood up and flexed my hands, glancing between one and the Hork-Bajir. An idea popped into my head, the first I'd had in three days that wasn't shared by the Yeerk. I decided to give it a try.

I allowed the Hork-Bajir to escort me towards the Ramonite box. But just before getting in I placed my hand on a Hork-Bajir flank and concentrated, the way I'd felt my Yeerk concentrate at the Gardens. Sure enough, the Hork-Bajir's head drooped for just a second and I felt the tingle in my finger, as the DNA of the creature entered my bloodstream.

Then his fellow guard closed the Ramonite box, and I turned my head to see Tom, curled up in a corner and crying.

There was no time for comfort or formality. My Yeerk would know as soon as he was back in my head, what I'd done. "I just acquired the Hork-Bajir," I told Tom. "Maybe I can morph him and slash us out of here."

Tom stopped sobbing uncontrollably just long enough to tap the side of the box. "The next one has a morph-capable Hork-Bajir in it. He's been bellowing for ten minutes now. The cage holds him."

I sighed and sank to my knees next to him. "So much for that idea," I muttered.

There was silence for a few moments. "I hit him," Tom mumbled.

"Huh?" I asked.

"I hit Jake. Slapped him across the face, twice, while the Hork-Bajir held him down."

I shook my head. "Your /Yeerk/ hit Jake. You didn't. Wouldn't."

Tom shook his head, wiping his tears away. "I was so mad at him."

I raised my eyebrow. "Why?"

"He knew. He /had/ to have known, for more than a year, what I was. What was inside my head." Tom sniffled. "All that time, I thought I was alone--"

"He did the right thing," I pointed out. "The Yeerks would have been after him the second he freed you or told you."

Tom shook his head, wiping his tears on his sleeve one more time. But he was under control again. "I know that, I really do. It's just.. part of me wishes it had been different. I could have been there for him, helped him. We could have done it together." Now that he wasn't broken or crying, he was mad. He slammed a fist against the box and screamed. "DAMN! I just wish we weren't on different sides! I wish the Yeerks weren't making me work against him!"

I shrugged, trying to stay optimistic, and enjoying the fact that I /could/ shrug. "I know Jake. I know whatever help the Yeerks get from /my/ brain is going to be no match for him. And as hard as it is to imagine what he's been going through out there, at least he's never been a Controller."

Now it was Tom's turn to shrug, nodding. "I guess. I'd hate to think of him having a Yeerk in his head. Especially not the /first/ Yeerk I had, the one who died at the hospital. /He/ was sadistic. My current Yeerk is peaceful by comparison."

Talking about my Yeerk's kind treatment was on the tip of my tongue, but I remembered my promise. Instead I changed the subject. "How are your parents taking it? Have you seen them, since..?"

Tom seemed almost like he might cry again. "My mom just kind of stares blankly. I think it's all been a bit much for her. My dad hugged me tightly and said he understood that it was my Yeerk, not me, that did this to us. He said he was proud of me for staying sane this long and sorry that he hadn't noticed the signs." Tom paused a moment and, with a flicker of a smile, added, "He also said how proud he was of Jake."

I nodded. "Yeah," I agreed. "Bet he's worried about him, though."

Tom swallowed a hard gulp, still fighting to keep his emotions in check. "When his Yeerk started passing out the photos with Jake's description for the other Yeerks to memorize, my dad fought him for control three times. Once he even succeeded in knocking his own head into the wall, almost knocked himself out. Anything to keep his son safe."

I shrugged. "The description is pretty much useless. Jake can look like anyone he can touch, after all."

Again, the flicker of a smile. "Yeah," Tom conceded, "I guess that's true. He's way more experienced at morphing than anyone the Yeerks have, including us. And he's got some pretty dangerous ones."

After that we said nothing to each other for awhile. He kept glancing over to me, like he wanted to say something, then frowning. Finally, he said, "My Yeerk received new orders tonight."

I shrugged. "What'd they say?"

He frowned. "I'm supposed to take my group along with another sub-group to guard some National Guard tanks that are coming in by train. The Yeerks are going to be mass-infesting National Guard troops."

I let out a long sigh. "Beginning of the end, huh?"

Tom nodded. "Doesn't look good. Another group's working in the Capitol. They've infested the Governor's husband and they're planning on going after her next week, too."

I bit my lip. "Checkmate," I said darkly. "Still, Jake and his group might be able to stop some of it, right?"

Tom rolled his eyes. "Just them?"

I put my hand on his shoulder. "Hey. It's been just them for a long time, in case you haven't realized. Just them who stopped that banquet with the world leaders. Just them who ruined the arctic Kandrona project. Just them who had and probably still have a whole colony of free Hork-Bajir out there somewhere."

Tom nodded. "You're right. You're right. I have to have faith in them." He smirked. "It's just tough when one of them's my little brother, y'know? I always used to call him

'Midget'. Even after he got taller. Just a little goofball."

I grinned. "I imagine you'll be taking him more seriously from now on?"

Tom shook his head. "Nah. After the week or two in which I do nothing but hug him twenty-four seven, I'll go back to pestering him." We looked at each other for a second and then we both giggled.

"Have hope, Tom. You've got someone out there who knows what you're going through and cares. The last thing he'd want is to think you'd given up."

Tom was about to reply, but the cage was opened and a Hork-Bajir head was glaring at us. "Come. Now."

We both got up and wordlessly got in line on the infestation pier. "Well," I said, wanting to make small talk while my voice was still my own, "Talk to you in three days, I guess."

Tom looked back at me and gave me a sad sort of smile. "I'm sorry you're going through this," he said, "but if I have to be here, I'm glad I'm not alone."

I smiled back at him. "Never, man. You're never alone."

"That's the problem," he joked, placing his ear with little resistance into the sludge of the Yeerk pool. Moments later he stood up, once again a prisoner in his own mind.

It was my turn. I sighed a last, deep breath, trying to hold on to the memory of breathing by my own will. And then I kneeled down and reluctantly placed my head inside the sludge. I felt the tip of the slimy thing on my ear, pushing in. It had long past the point where it actually hurt — my ear was used to this treatment now. The Yeerk slithered slowly in, paralyzing me bit by bit as he reconnected himself to the neurons in my brain.

«Hello,» I said, trying to sound kind of jovial. The first thing the Yeerk did was run through my new memories, from my acquisition of the Hork-Bajir DNA until the moment I knelt down over the sludge.

«Acquiring the Hork-Bajir was not smart,» he chided, «but I'll let it go since you remembered your word.» He stood my body up and started me walking back down the infestation pier. «Interesting new orders,» he commented.

«I suppose,» I said, running through the memories myself. I liked to dwell for awhile on whatever actions I took while my Yeerk was swimming in the pool. Those memories of freedom, even the limited freedom of a holding cell, were almost addictive at some points.

The Yeerk took me through the procedure in reverse, climbing up to the boys' locker room and stripping me down to my underwear. He started towards the cafeteria, but there was some kind of event going on in there now. So he walked me, in my underwear, out of the school and into the schoolyard behind the trees. I'd have been a little more apprehensive about it if it were daytime, but it was still disconcerting.

«It's safer than the school,» my Yeerk reminded me, whilst forcing us to shift and change. Strange, how I'd already gotten used to the reality of morphing in just under a day. I guess it's because it wasn't really /my/ power. Just one more thing the Yeerk did without my consent or consultation.

We flew up into the night, but we didn't stay in the air long.

Suddenly our left wing was clipped! "Tseeeeer!" the cry came, and I saw out of the corner of the eagle's eye the outline of a red-tailed hawk.

«Rebels!» my Yeerk cried, his thought-speak voice blaring out loud.

«That's right, Yeerk,» a human boy responded. It wasn't Jake's voice, but it had the kind of commanding authority I'd expect of a leader. «C'mon, guys, let's take him!»

The Yeerk flapped my wings like mad to keep his altitude, but the hawk was joined by a horned owl and two other red-tails. I was suddenly quite sure of it — I was going to die. I was going to be casualty to a war I'd never wanted to be a part of, killed by the people I was praying would win it.

Note to Alanis - /That/ is ironic.


	5. Considering

The squadron of hawks piled down on me from all angles

The squadron of hawks piled down on me from all angles. They didn't hit me, but their smaller bodies were forcing my Yeerk to bank the eagle's wings down and to the left. They were no longer including us in their thought-speak, but it was clear that they were still communicating privately. The owl was likely guiding the less darkness-oriented fliers.

I thought about Craig. The boy I'd tried to save from the bear. I wondered if this sacrifice, my death at the hands of the human resistance, would be as pointless as that one had been. At least I could no longer be used to help take over my own species.

«We're not dead yet,» my Yeerk reminded me, dipping my wings close to my body as he dove for the ground. We landed in the baseball field. Two boys were there, boys from the team. Cody and Martin. My Yeerk was past the point of caring. Right in front of them, my body started to emerge from the eagle's.

The hawks were a little more cautious - they landed in the nearby woods, presumably to do their own demorphing.

_Why_, I thought to myself (and of course, to my Yeerk, since all my thoughts are his to hear), _would Jake and the others care? We already know who they are and what they are_.

I could sense that the Yeerk realized the significance of my insight. And I again felt the pang of guilt, betraying the resistance with my very thoughts. But he was too busy concentrating on my demorph to comment.

"Hey look," Martin said, lowering his bat as he pointed towards me. "An eagle."

"What's /happening/ to it?" Cody asked in confusion. And then both boys started to scream.

«What?» my Yeerk complained, projecting my thought-speak voice aloud. «Never seen a boy grow out of an eagle before?» By now I was almost two feet tall, my feet having already emerged from the eagle's talons and my beak curled up into a human mouth and nose.

Cody ran to Martin's side, eyes never leaving my shifting and twisting body. Martin was paralyzed with shock and fear. Neither boy was going to be sleeping well for awhile, that was certain.

Too certain, I thought. They'll both be Controllers by the morning.

By now I was more human than eagle. «Look at it this way,» my Yeerk said almost jovially. «Two of my brothers will acquire more of an appreciation for baseball.»

"I know it's scary," my mouth said as the last of my fingers and toes formed. The Yeerk turned my head towards the bushes. "And it's about to get scarier."

"How... how did you /do/ that?" Cody asked, stepping slowly forward.

"I don't have time to explain," my Yeerk replied. "It's something you learn in the Sharing." The mental image of the cougar was already bright in my head while he spoke. "Some kids are abusing the power though," he clarified, jerking his head toward the woods. "Go inside the school and tell Chapman, he'll know how to talk to them. He'll take care of you, too."

The kids - my friends - wordlessly started to obey "my" command, unaware that they were taking their last runs as free human beings. Why would they be? They had just seen me emerge from an eagle's body, but I was still their trusted friend.

My waves of guilt grew stronger. I'd almost been ready to consider this Yeerk passable for a decent creature. But the small things he did for me meant nothing. He was still using my relationship with these kids to turn them into helpless puppets for two of his fellow Yeerks.

«If it's any consolation,» my Yeerk told me as he completed the cougar morph, «We may not live long enough to see them as hosts.»

I hadn't paid attention to the changes as they'd happened. I'd been too wrapped up in feeling sorry for my friends. But as the morph completed and my new body sprang to life, I became instantly aware of all that had changed.

My skull was short, rounded with powerful jaws and strong teeth. The heavy bones of the jaw, augmented by strong neck and shoulder muscles, made me feel like I could pounce on prey as large as an elephant and still take the impact well.

My sense of smell was incredible. I raised my cream-colored snout to the air and knew instantly what the enemy was. Bobcat. Bull. Crocodile. And Lion. All approximately three thousand yards away, covered only by a sparse layer of trees.

The bull and the croc were nothing. They didn't bother me. But my fellow cats did. They were in /my/ territory, and that was not acceptable. I lurched down onto my haunches for a moment, padding the ground with my front paws.

And then I flew! Thirty, thirty-five miles an hour from a standing start, padding my way straight towards the woods around them. But I was not so stupid as to go directly after them, no. I kept the distance between us constant, loping around on the edge. The lion started to move as well, trying to surround me, trap me in my section of the woods. But I knew the way to handle them.

I leaped up almost fifteen feet into one of the trees above me and opened my mouth to let out a scream. It was not a roar, exactly - roars are for the less subtle of my breed. I could not roar, but I could chirp, peep, purr, growl, moan, whistle and scream. All acts of subterfuge, of course. All to make the foolish cat think that there was human prey in the area.

It worked, but it was not the cat who arrived first, it was the bull. This was a good thing, as I would need a full stomach for the work to come. I kept myself upwind, so that the bull could not smell me. Such a thing would ruin the hunt, or at least make me work harder for it. It was thinking strangely, this one... almost like a human being. Searching the ground. Unaware that it's threat was to come from above.

I leaped! One hundred and sixty pounds of hungry kitty slammed into the side of the bull's leathery hide as my sharp, searing teeth ripped into it's flesh. «AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!» the bull cried, in human thought-speak.

The scream made me stop, my teeth just inches from ripping open the bull's throat. With a sudden jolt of awareness, I knew who I was. I was Chris. Chris, the human-Controller. And once again, the first to remember who and what I was. That I was not really a cougar, just a person being controlled by the cougar's instincts. A disturbingly familiar situation for me, but even with the smell of the "kill" fresh on it's lips, the cougar was easier to fight off than the Yeerk would ever be.

This time, I wasn't stupid enough to waste time waking up my Yeerk. «Over here!» I cried in open thought-speak, not that the rebels could possibly be unaware of the smell of blood coming from the injured bull. Then, I took off at a trot back towards the schoolyard.

It was only a matter of seconds, but I'd already covered almost half the field before my lithe cougar legs stopped responding to my commands.

Surprisingly, my Yeerk wasn't angry. Just annoyed. «Thought you'd go for a stroll, did you?»

I grinned inwardly. «Just helping you get away. They'll be too busy with the bull now to chase us.»

The Yeerk sighed, and again the cougar started to run, but this time it was away from the attackers. «I don't know why you bother trying to lie to me. You know I can see your thoughts, your memories. You were trying to save that rebel from me. You knew that once I'd regained control I'd have bitten it.»

The cougar could easily smell that it was not being followed, at least not by any out-of-the-ordinary animals. Birds and rats and raccoons and other animals native to the area were everywhere, and any one of them could have been a rebel in morph, but at least they were not a danger.

A quick jump to a rooftop and the Yeerk reached my bedroom window. It was only open enough to let a bird in, but that presented no problem for the cougar's teeth. A small red blood stain tainted the blue paint of the windowsill as he lifted my morphed head up, pushing the window open enough to leap into the room.

We were demorphed and asleep before anyone at home knew the wiser.

The next morning my big brother woke me up by dumping a cup of cheery Kool-Aid on my forehead.

"Jeez, you _jerk_," the Yeerk whined, sitting upright in my bed. My hands pulled my shirt off and started patting the juice out of my face and hair with it. "What was /that/ about?"

My brother just rolled his eyes. "It was about your alarm clock going off for half an hour and you laying there like a sack, numbnuts. 'Sides, you got a friend downstairs waiting for you."

"I do?" the Yeerk said curiously. I got excited thinking that maybe it was Eric! Maybe he wanted to discuss details of tonight's movie. Or wait, maybe he wanted to cancel the movie. I wasn't sure which option would make me happy and which miserable, with this accursed Yeerk scrambling my brain.

"I'll send him up," my brother said, walking out the door. Moments later Cody walked in.

No. Not Cody. I could see that in his eyes long before his words confirmed it. "Ah, good," he said, "You're okay. You should have called last night. Exas One-Oh-Six was worried that the rebels had captured you."

I wanted to cry. I sat there staring through eyes that were no longer mine and realizing that, yet again, one of my friends was staring back at me through eyes /he/ could no longer control. It was all my fault. I'd turned another one. This rampant plague of Yeerks was going to run all over the world before anyone noticed, and I would always be remembered, voicelessly, as one of the first who'd helped them do it.

My Yeerk ignored my rantings. "I was exhausted. Four morphs in less than an hour, I have no idea how the rebels do it."

Cody's Yeek nodded. "It /does/ sound rough, I admit." He tapped my shoulder. "Thanks for the body, by the way. I'm Ryos Six-Twenty-Four."

My Yeerk smirked. "Orkath One-Seven-Two. Any problems adjusting to your host brain?"

"Not really," Cody's Yeerk shrugged, sitting down at the chair by my desk and propping his feet up. "He was almost glad for the company. Lonely sort. /Sad/ life. Totally obsessed over this girl and this baseball trophy, neither of which he has /any/ hope for."

My Yeerk laughed. "For me, it's a boy and watching 'Buffy, the Vampire Slayer'. Strange obsessions, to be sure, but much more attainable."

«Great,» I mumbled, «another member of the team who knows I'm gay. If we ever /do/ get out of..» I stopped ranting and thought for a second. «Wait, did you just say "me", or "my host"?»

«I said "me",» the Yeerk admitted snippily. «I /am/ pretending to be you, remember.»

«Not in front of your fellow Yeerks,» I pointed out.

Cody's Yeerk laughed. "Wow, you've made my host here somewhat paranoid. He says that you are something called a 'fag' and that you will now attempt to make me do things which are extremely pleasurable against my will."

My Yeerk accessed my memories, and I found myself paradoxically attempting to explain bigotry to him. Like a Yeerk needed any lessons in intolerance.

"Pay it no mind," my mouth said, although I was uncertain about whether the Yeerk was speaking to Cody's Yeerk or to me. "Come on, we'll be late for school."

The walk to school was almost uneventful and boring. Just the beginning of another day in a long string of days that no longer mattered.

«Look,» the Yeerk said to me, adjusting my eyes upwards. «That cloud... it has a familiar shape. It is shaped like one of your human frogs.»

«We don't really own frogs,» I commented, unnecessarily.

«Still,» the Yeerk commented, «the vision of it makes me feel... connected to it somehow. Like it is more than a cloud because of what it reminds me of.»

I actually half-laughed when I realized it. The Yeerk was trying to cheer me up. The Yeerk realized that Cody's slur had bothered me. «Well congratulations,» I said sarcastically. «You've developed an imagination.»

«I've always had imagination. Most Yeerks do, you know.»

«Whatever,» I scoffed. «If your people had imagination you'd be busy thinking of ways to get your own bodies instead of taking /mine/.»

The Yeerk became angry - his anger felt different from my usual experience of it, though. It was almost an anger of passion. «What do you want me to do?» he complained. I'm /trying/ here, a-»

«Trying?» I interrupted. I became more and more angry myself, at every word. «I'm sorry, I didn't realize I should be so grateful. Wow, my Yeerk feels sorry that something some jerk who doesn't even have control of his own voice was thinking about me bothered me. What about all the damage /you've/ done to my feelings over the last year, huh?»

I expected the Yeerk to make some kind of witty response. Something about that not mattering, about how I should be grateful to have him for a Yeerk instead of some of the crueler ones. Same crap you hear from a cruel parent all the time - I'd heard my friends' parents say it often enough. I'd always thanked God that my parents were never like that - they never considered "mild" atrocities to be acceptable just because there were worse out there.

But the Yeerk's retort never came. He started to again ignore me, branching out into some conversation with Cody's Yeerk about some seaweed they'd heard about on the Yeerk home world and how they couldn't wait to retake their planet from the Andalites and wrap themselves around in it. And I was left alone with my thoughts.

_The Yeerk's first act of kindness, if you want to call it that, occurred when my dad died, in the hospital. He was already incredibly sick before I became a Controller, but it was in the month afterwards that he'd gotten so bad that hospitalization was necessary. I couldn't help but feel like part of it was because I wasn't spending as much time with him. Of course I wasn't - my Yeerk had other plans for my body._

_Nevertheless, I was still the one he was closest to, in some ways even closer than my mom was. And so my Yeerk had no choice but to visit him in the hospital - to do less would be to blow my cover. He sat there, looking at my father breathing through a labored tube, listening to me crying in my head because I couldn't walk over and hug him. It was the first time that my thoughts, my rantings, had ever really bothered him._

_Finally, one day, he said, «Okay.»_

_Not being privy to his thoughts, I was confused. «Okay, what?» I asked._

_«Okay, I'm giving you control of your body.» Sensing my rapid elation, he added, «Not permanently, just for an hour or so. Just so you can say and do what you want, for your dad. But mind me, human - if you breathe a word to him about my people, I will wrest control of you so fast you'll never know you had it, and spend the next month making you pay for it.»_

_Suddenly I felt my body go limp in the chair that I was sitting in. I flexed my hand, and for the first time in any place other than the Yeerk pool it was answering me on it's own. I stood slowly, steadily, on my legs and walked over to the dying man on the bed. He lifted his weary eyes and, despite the best efforts of the Yeerk's deception, could tell instantly that something had changed._

_"The spark," he mumbled. It was a longstanding word between us. When I'd asked him how I would know when someone loved me, he said, "The spark."_

_I smiled softly at my father and placed my small hand in his larger one. "Yeah," I said._

_"I thought..." A coughing fit interrupted my father, his grip on my hand tightening a bit. "I thought... I'd lost you."_

_"Never," I stated firmly, leaning down towards him. "I'll _/always_/ love you."_

_With nary more than a smile, my father replied, "And I, you." And then the spark of life left him. One hand still holding my father's, I reached up with my free hand and closed the lids of his eyes one final time. Then I walked back to my chair and cried until my mother and my older brother returned._

_I looked up at my mother. And then my hand, not of my own will, wiped my tears away from my eyes as my body stood to walk to her. My first reaction was anger. «No, damn you! Let me tell them! Let me hold them! NO!»_

_It wasn't until days later, sitting in my classroom as my Yeerk zoned out on the lesson the way I always did, that I said, «Thank you.» I didn't have to explain what for - the Yeerk knew what I was thinking about when I said it._

It was a small thing. A small gift, made smaller by the memories of all the atrocities that the Yeerk had forced me to commit. And yet, it reminded me that deep down, somewhere, underneath all that the Yeerk did to me and through me, there was a sentient creature who actually cared.

«I do, you know.»

The thought-speak voice snapped me out of my memories and back to the present. The Yeerk, realizing my disorientation, repeated himself. «I /do/ care.»

I couldn't be as angry with him as I wanted to be, the memory of being allowed to say goodbye to my father still so clear in my head. «You're alright, Orkath. If things were different... who knows? Maybe we could have been friends.»

The Yeerk's emotions again changed - strange, how you never really notice the rapid changes emotions can go through until you're feeling someone else's. This emotion was very clear - bitterness. «I doubt that, Chris. I doubt that you or any other human could ever have seen me as something other than one of your disgusting slugs.»

I didn't have an answer for him. I wanted to believe he was wrong, but the truth was that I simply didn't know for sure, and I didn't want to think about it. I focused on the outside world, instead. Cody and I had completed our walk to school and were standing in the hallway, speaking to Vice Principal Chapman, the other new Controller Martin, and Mister Tidwell. One of the school secretaries was just breaking it up, telling Chapman that he had a phone call in his office.

The rest of us started on down the hall. "So," Mr. Tidwell said, "Martin, I'll need to see you after third period to discuss your English paper. You will remember, won't you?"

Martin nodded. "Yeah, Mister Tidwell. I just.."

He was interrupted by Chapman's voice, screaming "My HOUSE?!" loudly enough for the whole school to hear. For a moment it made all of us cringe.

"I just have to see my Social Studies teacher about an assignment first," Martin continued. "Then I'll be there."

My Yeerk tapped Martin on the shoulder. "Hey, I've got a 'date' of sorts with this kid Eric. If you're not doing anything this afternoon, why don't you check with Jason, see if he can get you to take my spot on the squadron. After you're given the proper... upgrade, shall we say." My mouth made an evil smirk.

Mister Tidwell and Martin seemed happy about the idea also. "That's not a bad idea, Martin. The more people we have capable of that, the better." He looked over to me, lowering his voice a bit, the way I /wished/ my Yeerk would when he decided to bring up things like Eric. "Think the Visser will approve?"

My shoulders went up and down in a non-committal shrug. "I think Tom would, that's the important thing, really."

We had arrived at my classroom. "Well," my mouth said, jerking my thumb toward the door, "Another lovely classroom experience awaits."

Classes were less boring for me than they used to be before I became a Controller. I guess, when doing physical things is no longer possible, the mental are just naturally more exciting. I was actually learning a lot about what the teachers were talking about, at least when my Yeerk was kind enough to focus on their voices or what they were writing on the blackboard. I couldn't get my mind off of seeing Eric that night. It had become the talk of a pretty large segment of the Yeerk pool - several Controllers had offered us luck with "the big date".

In between classes my Yeerk made his report about last night's battle, particularly about his inability to control the morphs before I did. Sub-Visser Eighty-Two, the Yeerk of a rather ruthless-looking ten year old, ensured him that it was only because it was the first time trying those particular morphs, and that everyone had a problem with the animal instincts the first time. He then gave us our orders for the afternoon and sent us on our way.

After my last class, Eric was waiting for me outside my classroom door. "Hey," he said in that unbelievably shy way of his.

"Hey," my Yeerk replied. There was a moment of awkward silence between us - well, between /them/ - as we started to walk slowly down the hallway. "So," my Yeerk said, "we're still on for tonight, right?"

"Oh, yeah, of course," the other boy stammered. "I mean, that is, if you're still up for it."

The Yeerk knew how to play me to the tee. "Well, I am if you are."

Eric smirked. "Well, I am if you are."

The Yeerk rolled my eyes. "I think there's a 'yes' buried in all this somewhere."

Eric blushed, pushing back a lock of that beautiful golden hair. "Yeah," he said nervously, "I guess so." Another moment of silence. This time Eric broke it. "Soooo... I guess I should meet you at your place later? You're pretty close, it shouldn't be much of a walk from your house to mine."

"Sounds neat," my Yeerk said.

"Okay, so, uh, I'll see you at around seven." Eric started to quicken his pace a bit, to move on with his afternoon.

"I'll be there," the Yeerk called after him, provoking quite a few knowing looks from the boys and girls in the hallway who were Controllers. The Yeerk rolled my eyes again and then turned down a side hallway and out of the building.


	6. Perceiving

.

The beach wind spilled against our wings as we soared over the sky on our patrol, looking alertly for members of the human resistance. It was the Yeerk's honored duty. It was a mission of monumental importance. It was…

It was…

«A half-eaten cherry lifesaver!» I cried, glancing through our morphed seagull eyes at the food below. «Man, that's criminal. We /can't/ let it just lay there like that.»

«It /does/ seem regretful,» my Yeerk agreed, mirroring my discontent. «Why would you humans waste perfectly good food like that?»

The Yeerk had cautioned me, before morphing the seagull, that it would make me regret anything I tried to do or say if I got control of the morph before he did again. But apparently the seagull's instincts were, in some ways, more than a match for both of us.

«It's not their fault,» I half-heartedly griped, coming to the defense of my species. «It's just-- oh, hey, that guy's got lasagna!»

«Mmm, I bet it would be so juicy to just dip our beak in and..» The Yeerk realized what he was saying and tried, also half-heartedly, to play his role as overlord. «I mean, umm, silence, slave. You're distracting me. I should be looking at the people.»

«None of them are going to be here, you know,» I commented. «If they know about the plan with the National Guard, they're going to be doing something to bust it up. The only reason we're even here instead of rounding up National Guard troops is because of our date with Eric.»

«True,» the Yeerk conceded, arcing our left wing so that we did a spin in the air. After a moment, he said, «Hey, since this isn't exactly life and death at the moment, you wanna try it?»

«Try what?» I asked curiously.

«Flying.»

For a moment I was so shocked that I couldn't even /think/ of a reply. The idea that the Yeerk would even ask was almost shocking. I had become so accustomed to being controlled that I hadn't even really fantasized about what it would be like, to be drifting through the air on my own. To have control of the eyes, the wings, the beak.

«I'll take that as a yes,» the Yeerk chuckled. «Okay, control's yours in three.. two.. one..»

I was grateful for the warning. Going limp like I had at the hospital a year ago would have been potentially fatal up here in the air. Still, my flight was nowhere near as graceful as the Yeerk's had been. «What do I do?» I asked him.

«Use the seagull mind,» the Yeerk advised me. «It knows how to fly.»

I reached out with my mind, like they always tell you to do on dumb movies like Star Wars, and I could feel the seagull mind brushing against my own. I tapped into its instincts and, using the knowledge, guided my seagull body off to the left. «Woooo!» I cried, but in private thought-speak. «This is amazing!» With another tap into the seagull, I learned how to dive, and I did, joining my seagull brothers and sisters in snatching chunks of bread that a small human was throwing up into the air.

«Well,» my Yeerk said with an almost paternal pride. «Good job.»

«Thank you,» I said giddily.

«You've got the makings of a fine Yeerk, the way you handle that seagull mind.»

That statement soured my mood considerably. I felt angry. I felt immoral, anger directed within. «You take control again,» I said testily, the first time I'd ever voluntarily given my body over. But it didn't matter. The Yeerk had made it's point, and it knew it.

«So,» the Yeerk said, «why didn't you ask the seagull what it wanted? Why didn't you co-exist?»

«That was a dirty trick,» I muttered.

«I didn't mean it as one,» the Yeerk said sincerely. «I just meant for you to enjoy something that I had. But you see, now, how it is for us. How we become so excited by the new sensations that we hardly consider the mind beneath us.»

«But I backed off when I realized what I was doing,» I retorted.

The Yeerk half-laughed. «And if your species had not yet realized what you had, and would shun you for backing off? What then?»

«I wouldn't care!» I declared. «What's right is what's right, whether the rest of society agrees or not.»

«I see,» the Yeerk said. «That is why you have made your sexuality known to your family, your friends, your school.»

My chastened silence was all the answer the Yeerk needed. «Not so simple anymore, is it?» he said satisfactorally.

I did not have an answer.


	7. Experiencing

.

The doorbell rang promptly and precisely at seven o'clock. Evidently punctuality was an important thing to Eric. Of course, we weren't even remotely ready. Not like we hadn't been trying. Quick flight back to my house - which is /not/ easy flying for a seagull, but we didn't want to be tired out from morphing. In through the window. Demorph to human. Try on my purple and green striped shirt with my black sweatpants. The Yeerk liked it, I said it made me look like a reject from a Backstreet Boys video. Switched to my plain red shirt with brown jeans. I thought it was fine, but the Yeerk found it to be too plain. Then we realized we hadn't showered, so we tossed all the clothes in the corner, ran to the bathroom, showered, brushed my teeth, unnecessarily put on deodorant, ran back into my bedroom, dried off, combed my hair, and then went back to arguing about which clothes would be the best. Despite the earlier rush, we had wound up with about half an hour to agree on the outfit.

I was naked when the doorbell rang.

In a way, it seemed like the Yeerk was almost as anxious and nervous as I was. I didn't bother to actually direct the thought to him - he'd only have said he was "playing my role" - and if he noticed that I was thinking it, he didn't comment. But when the doorbell rang, I definitely detected the jitters coming from the Yeerk in my head.

«You /want/ to go on this date, don't you?» I observed. «And not just because he's a good slug motel. You really like him. As a human.»

The Yeerk was annoyed at my insight. «I /am/ living in your body, you know. I feel your desire to eat, to play, to sleep in class. Of course I share your more... taboo desires, as well.»

«Heh,» I chuckled. «A horny Yeerk. /This/ ought to be amusing.»

We threw on the striped shirt with the brown jeans - compromise at it's best - and bolted downstairs to where my mom was /already/ asking far too many questions of my young suitor.

"So," she was saying, "What's your name?"

He was stunning to behold. He was wearing a light colored shirt with stripes like mine, except that they were a random array of light yellows and reds and greens. His shorts were a dark green, looping out over the cream-colored skin of his legs like a hula hoop around a hippie. Light brown sandals showed off the pink of his toes.

"Uh, mom," the Yeerk said, "this is Eric, from my team. We're going to his house to watch a movie."

"Oh," my mom gleamed. She always got that look in her eye when I had a one-on-one night planned; she said I spent too much time in large groups like the Sharing. _Yeah, mom,_ I thought sarcastically, _I'm there so much it seems like I'm never alone anymore._

The Yeerk laughed out loud in my voice, cutting my mother off.

"What's so funny, sweetheart?" my mom asked interestedly.

"Uh, nothing," the Yeerk covered. "Just... thinking about something from class." He turned to the blond at the door. "You ready, Eric?"

"Yeah, sure," Eric said. "Oh, except my dad said that if you wanted to sleep over tonight and eat breakfast with us on Saturday morning, that you'd be welcome."

«Hah!» the Yeerk said, «he wants me!»

«Don't you think we should actually tell him that it's a /date/ at some point?» I retorted.

"Mom, is it okay?" my mouth asked eagerly.

My mom shrugged. "Of course, honey, just don't stay up /too/ late. Eric, is there a number where I can reach you boys?"

Eric gave her the number and she wrote it down.

"Bye boys!" my mom called after us. "Have fun!"

"Geez," the Yeerk said bashfully as we started walking, "she can be so... you know... Mommish, sometimes."

Eric laughed. "Yeah, it's okay, though. I have one of those, too. So, what movie do you want to see?"

Neither me or the Yeerk had given it any serious thought. He started rifling through my memories for good ones.

«What about this one?» he asked, displaying a mental picture in my head.

«Umm, no, that's porn.» I started giving it some thought of my own. «Maybe a comedy? I bet he has the /greatest/ laugh.»

«I'll ask.» The Yeerk aimed my eyes back at Eric, stopping a moment to admire the freckles on his cheeks for me. No, for /both/ of us. "What about a comedy? I bet you have a nice laugh."

I'd have blushed if I could have. «You weren't supposed to repeat THAT!»

«Why not?» the Yeerk asked in confusion.

«He's so going to think we're flirting,» I complained.

«Well, aren't we?»

Fortunately, Eric wasn't bothered. If anything it seemed almost like he blushed a little bit. "Yeah, I like to laugh. World's a better place to be with humor."

"I'd have to agree with you there," the Yeerk replied. "Comedy it is, then."

"Hey," Eric said, "have you ever seen 'the Princess Bride'? It's kind of old, but it's a really good movie."

The Yeerk searched my memory. I had seen the Princess Bride, with my older brother and my mom. It was a great movie - filled with swordplay and adventure, and most importantly, the mushy aspects of true love. It seemed like the ideal choice.

Still, just a little bit of the good will that my Yeerk and I had been sharing over the last few hours was soured by the fact that he hadn't bothered to actually /ask/ me.

"Sounds like a plan," my mouth said. "We are going to have the best time this weekend."

"Yup," Eric grinned, "I hope so."

We made it to Eric's house somewhat quickly and wasted no time rushing up to his room. It was a pretty cool room - computer on the desk, Civil Air Patrol uniform hanging neatly in his closet, model airplanes and spaceships decorating the dresser, the bookshelf, the little mini-TV.

The uniform particularly interested the Yeerk. «He is a member of the human military?»

«No,» I half-laughed, «CAP isn't really military. They're more... well, I guess I don't really know what they do.»

"Hey," the Yeerk asked, "What's with the G.I. Joe outfit?"

Eric glanced where "we" were pointing. "Oh, that, it's just a group I belong to. Pretty cool. We get called on in emergencies to do search and rescue of downed planes and evacuations and stuff like that. Kind of important, really."

We were both impressed. "Wow, that /does/ sound pretty cool."

"You should join," Eric commented. With a wry grin, he added, "You'd be one of my troops, probably. I just got put in charge of a flight group." He tapped an insignia on the collar of the uniform, a shield with three stripes. "See? Cadet Sergeant."

My mouth curved up into a smirk. "Guess I'd have to take orders from you then, Sergeant."

This time I was positive - the redness in Eric's cheeks was definitely a blush. With a weak laugh, he changed the topic. "You like Warcraft? I've got the Enhanced edition on here."

I did like Warcraft, so my Yeerk and Eric took turns playing it for awhile. As the night progressed, the Yeerk felt more and more at ease, with both Eric and me. He would repeat comments for me with not even the smallest thought. His feelings, still readable to me, were relaxed and casual. More surprisingly, I began to hear echoes of his thoughts as he had them. He was opening himself up to me more than he ever had before.

Finally, we were called downstairs by Eric's parents, who'd made us cheeseburgers and fries. We engaged in a few minutes of small talk, mostly about the team and how we were doing this season. It was a sore subject for the Yeerk because of the likelihood that the invasion of the planet would have progressed far enough by the end of the season that we wouldn't get to play in the playoffs.

It was an almost laughable irony. One of the alien invaders mourning the inability to play baseball because of his own peoples' invasion. But I could relate. I could see my Yeerk's point of view. It was interesting to consider.

The Yeerk seemed to be considering something as well, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Something was tugging at his thoughts, some decision he was trying to come to. Every so often he'd glance at Eric during one of those concentration spasms, and it was only then that I could feel some residual contempt for him. Maybe I understood better what he was going through, but that didn't mean I could condone any thoughts of infestation he had for Eric.

After dinner, we went into the living room and sat on the couch to watch the movie. I was right - he /did/ have the best laugh, and it wasn't hard to get him to use it. Even the dumb cheek-pinching joke in the beginning of the movie got a response from him.

The movie's plot was a very simple one - a boy, sick in bed, is read an adventure story by his grandfather to help pass the time. In the story, a brave young couple faces all the obstacles their environment can toss at their young love, eventually emerging triumphant in their feelings for each other.

Their relationship's beginning was an interesting one at best - it started with the girl ordering the boy around like a peasant. All manner of inconceivably harsh command was thrown at the young lad, to which he gave a single, simple answer: "As you wish." The grandfather made a point of telling his grandson that when the lad spoke "As you wish", what he meant was "I love you."

The grandson was not amused with the way the story was going. "Is this a kissing book?" he complained on the screen, getting another laugh from Eric and an internal one from the Yeerk. The grandfather assured him that someday he might not mind so much.

Eric and "I" didn't talk all that much during the movie, but we had repositioned a number of times, sitting closer to each other and getting more comfortable. During one point in the movie the man had to fight a giant to get to his love, and Eric took the excuse to put me in a headlock.

"Hey!" the Yeerk complained, poking him in the ribs.

"Just want to see if I can make you lose your breath," Eric giggled, giving me a nuggie with the other hand. On the screen, the giant was starting to collapse, the man on his back suffocating him. Surely enough, Eric stopped when the giant fell. But he left his hand around my shoulder. My body leaned further in, almost cuddling, the Yeerk barely aware that he'd moved us closer.

«Strange, this feeling,» he said uncertainly. I could feel him trying, unsuccessfully, to control my heartbeat.

«Yeah,» I said dreamily, «I know what you mean.»

Again we said nothing for awhile, but when the man on the screen began to challenge the prince for the girl's hand, the Yeerk could be silent no longer.

«Amazing,» he commented. «You have a civilized society; yet you make representations which value going against the established rules for the sake of uncontrollable emotions.»

«Powerful emotions,» I replied. «Feelings that make you feel more complete, more connected to a person.»

«And yet,» the Yeerk pointed out, «we are more connected, but do not share those feelings.»

«We didn't exactly start out on the best footing.»

«No,» the Yeerk admitted, «we did not.» An awkward silence stretched between us for a moment. When he did speak again, I didn't understand the implications of his words at first. «Maybe it could work for me,» he said uncertainly.

«What?» I asked.

«What you do. Hiding your sexuality from your society, yet embracing it in privacy. Being "in the closet", that's how you refer to it, right?» He sounded nervous and excited at the same time. «Maybe I could be "in the closet" too.»

Maybe I didn't want to be so hopeful, or maybe I just didn't get it. «You like him too, hmm? He is a very nice boy.»

«I don't mean Eric,» the Yeerk chided. «I mean all of it. You. Earth. The humans. Maybe I can like it all, in secret.»

For the first time since I'd been infested, I felt a new emotion for my Yeerk. I felt affection. «Maybe you have been all along,» I pointed out. «Your love of baseball, your attention to my mom… maybe you're finally coming out to yourself.»

The Yeerk laughed in my head, a pleasing, sensuous sound. «Maybe you're right.»

The movie screen had gone blank, the film over. Reflexively, as if we needed to feel our new bond physically, we hugged Eric tighter.

Eric looked almost through us, he was staring so hard. His lips were trembling. He cleared his throat nervously, motioning ever so meekly to the pillow on the other side of me. "Pass me that pillow?" he asked demurely.

I smiled. It happened so naturally, just like breathing. /I/ smiled. By my own will. The realization of it made my smile broaden. "As you wish," I replied softly, reaching behind me without taking my eyes off of Eric and putting the pillow behind him, leaning forward as he leaned backwards onto it. I felt the slightest pressure on my back as Eric pushed me a little closer to him. Slowly I leaned in to him and he curved his face up and our lips brushed against each other, gentle and nimble.

The smacking sound it made as our lips parted was so soft, it would likely have gone unheard had we not been in total silence.

"Did that just happen?" he asked weakly, looking tenderly up at me.

"Did you want it to?" I asked gently, running my finger along a lock of his hair. All my doubts were faded away. I was free, and I wasn't going to waste my precious freedom on doubts or confusion.

"Not as much as I want it to happen again," came the boy's mischievous reply. His disarming smile endeared me to him all the more.

"As you wish," I replied, leaning in and kissing him again. This time there was passion in the act, tongues dancing a ballet of tender, soulful affection.

«You wanna try?» I asked my Yeerk… my partner. And then, I felt control slip away from me as the Yeerk let his own feelings, perhaps similar on some levels, flow into the union of our lips. As we pulled away, control was joined.

Eric clung tighter to us, then, and strangely began to sob softly. "Thank you," he mumbled, squeezing us tightly. "You have no idea how scared I was… that you wouldn't like me… that you'd…"

"Shhhh," we offered, our brains functioning almost synchronously as we rocked him back and forth, comforting him. Could all Yeerks do this, I wondered? Was it possible to share control this completely, or were we merely thinking on the same wavelength?

«Thank _you_», I said, waves of affection passing between me and the Yeerk in a fashion almost similar to the kiss we'd shared with the boy in my arms. «Friends?» I asked.

«Friends,» the Yeerk agreed.

The silence was interrupted by the sound of the TV, the tape having reached its end and begun to rewind. A program was already in progress.

"…interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you late breaking news from the capitol." I sat up, staring uncertainly at the gray-haired woman on the screen.

Eric got up sheepishly and moved to the TV knob. "Damn it," he muses, grinning at me, "my first kiss and the Governor has to break in on it." His smile faded as channel after channel revealed the same determined face, the same brown podium. "She's on every channel," he commented. "Must be big."

"…state of emergency. This is not martial law. Our police, and even our National Guard forces, cannot be trusted. The news media cannot be trusted. You may not even be able to trust your friends or your own family."

It was then that we knew. We knew what the Governor was talking about.

"A foul and disgusting invader has plagued our land, an insidious parasite without conscience, without honor and without dignity." I could feel the words cut my Ye… cut Orkath deeply, each one a stab of pain. "This threat has been running rampant, like a plague of locusts, spreading unseen through our civilization for over two years now." She looked straight at the camera, accusingly, almost as if she were looking straight at us. "They call themselves Yeerks."


	8. Orkath the First

The human host, Chris, could feel my pain, but he could not see the resentful thoughts that went through me as I listened to t

.

The human host, Chris, could feel my pain, but he could not see the resentful thoughts that went through me as I listened to their Governor's speech. "These foul beings have brought with them slaves, members of other species who have already been made into Controllers. Like cowards, they hide behind these victims of their menace to infest us all, to use our bodies as tools for their own perverse pleasures." She spoke harshly, as if she knew, personally, what went through each and every one of us. As if our very existence was enough to make any civilized creature wrinkle it's equivalent of a nose and burn us.

I'd been present when we acquired the Hork-Bajir. The Ssstram. I was too young to have a host when we'd acquired the Naharans, but I had seen the vids of our very first extraterrestrial bondings. These species also resented our need for their bodies. They also resisted infestation. But throughout the conflicts, they never spoke of us without honor. Even the Andalites, who hate us - even they acknowledge when we fight well and bravely. And we acknowledge their prowess as well. Even Visser One, monster that he can be on most occasions, acknowledged that Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul had fought well and bravely, that he had struck a mighty blow against us during his time as a warrior. He allowed Elfangor to die with a sense of accomplishment, a sense of righteousness.

Where were the Governor's words about our cunning? Our resourcefulness? Where was the acknowledgement that we had done well, hiding our invasion for so long? Where was the basic respect that one being shows another, even one under the scourge of war?

My name is Orkath One-Seven-Two, of the Hett Simplat pool. What that means is that a generation ago, three Yeerks - a male named Siom Three-Seven-One, a female named Pilat Four-One-Two, and a mixer named Hett One-One-Nine, crinkled into the corner of some cold, steel vat in the emptiness of space and fused their bodies together, the male's dual antennae sliding through the porous middle of the mixer's squishy flesh and into the opening in the middle of the female's front end. Very little is known about the sensations of the act - it may be pleasurable, like human coupling, or it may be painful considering that the parent Yeerks die during the act. But what we're pretty sure of is that both the male and female Yeerks attempt to "infest" the mixer, their bodies becoming paper-thin and enveloping around hir just as they would a host body's brain. From that union the three bodies become one distinct, huge mass, and then that mass slowly breaks down into hundreds of grubs. Each grub matures into a new Yeerk.

Those three - my parents - were the first to procreate off of the homeworld. We were the first Yeerks born in space, pioneers of our race's expansion into the galaxy. Ours was a glorious heritage, not one to be taken likely. And I held a place of honor in that heritage, because only one in twenty Yeerks is born as a mixer, and I was one. It would be my duty one day to facilitate a joining with two of my fellow Yeerks, and one day spawn an Orkath Something pool. Mine would be a joyous legacy, my children spread into hosts across the galaxy. And these... these humans... had no respect for that legacy. No common decency to acknowledge us as civilized beings, despite our differences. They were worse than the Andalites.

I clamped down on my host, hard. I had been allowing him to share control with me - I had even made a declaration of friendship. But now I knew. I knew that there could never be a friendship, with him, or with his species. I pointed his eyes towards the young male whom we had just shared a moment's passion with, despite the fact that my host was also male and their society frowned upon this. He was in shock, staring at the screen, listening to the words of his commander. Realizing that his world was under fire. He was a threat, he and all of his backwards, contemptable species, especially now that they were being rallied against us. The only solution was to make sure he would not be able to harm us.

"I can't believe it," he mumbled, staring at the screen as the Governor's transmission ended.

"That we're at war, or that there are real aliens?" I asked curiously. I genuinely wanted to know, too.

"Both," came the hesitant reply, the boy's head tilting in my direction. I could already see suspicion behind those shrewd eyes. That was good - he wasn't a complete idiot, I acknowledged. At least /I/ knew how to acknowledge my opponent's strengths, even as I worked against them.

"It makes sense to me," I said, using my host's mouth. By then he started to realize my intention, to rant and rave in my head. I ignored him.

"What do you mean?" Eric asked curiously.

"Well," I said conspiratorially, "Not everybody knows it, but there's a level of membership in the Sharing that's higher than being a 'full' member. They talk about an even higher sacrifice, about giving up control to a higher order." Outright lie, of course - full membership /was/ about infestation. But the boy didn't know that, and the story was plausible. "I didn't go for it because it was starting to sound way too much like a cult. But maybe it was these Yeerts or Yeerks or whatever."

He seemed to digest that information, eyes glazing over as he became lost in his own thoughts. But I wasn't about to let him stay there - he'd have time enough for that sort of thing once his thoughts were all that was open to him.

"They meet at the Community Center... we should go there, see what we can see about it." I looked at him pleadingly. "If I'm right, then the Governor needs to be told."

Again, there was hesitation. But only a moment. "Okay," he agreed, "you're right. We should make sure."

My host body screamed the entire way there. Quite the emotional roller coaster, a human can be. He went from pleading with me to cursing me and back within seconds, several times over, before we reached the Community Center. Truth is, a part of me did feel sorry. I had liked the idea of a partnership, friendship between us. Ironically, I had been feeling very lonely over the last few months, isolated, and my host's company had been a comfort to me. But he was a member of a contemptible, aggressive species. Our control of his species and his planet was crucial. In many ways it even felt like we were doing the galaxy a favor.

«How could you be doing this to me?» Chris raved.

The problem started when we reached the Community Center. That's when I turned around to tell Eric to stay low. He was already stopped, a butcher knife in hand, looking angrily at me. "That's far enough, Yeerk," he declared.

I peered at him. "What do you mean, Yeerk?" I asked. "I'm not a Yeerk."

Eric shook his head sadly. "If you weren't a Yeerk, then by now you'd have shown some indication of mistrust towards /me/. Instead, you've quietly, trustingly led me here. Because you know I'm not a Yeerk. You know you are." With a sigh, he added, "Besides... no way in this world I'm really lucky enough to have Chris Windward as a boyfriend."

With a glance behind the astute child, a grin appeared on my stolen face. "Very good, Eric," I conceded, the need to pretend over. "But entirely too late. Have you yet guessed, about the Sharing?"

"The regular full members," he declared, although it was obvious from his face that he hadn't thought that part out yet. "They /are/ the Yeerks. There is no inner-inner circle, like you were trying to convince me." He'd perhaps have had another thought to relay, but the feeling of Cody pressing a Dracon Beam into his back was enough to quiet him.

"I'll make it simple," I said, trying to keep my voice firm. Trying not to leave even the slightest hint that I cared for this human child. "You come along quietly and politely, or I give the order and watch you vaporize into sub-atomic particles."

"Maybe I'd prefer that," Eric replied, trying to sound tough.

"Come now," I said, smirking. "Think of your family, your friends. How they'd miss y—" Suddenly, the words stopped coming! Blades shot out of my forehead. My legs. My arms. I toppled over as a large, green tail ripped open my jeans and jutted out, too heavy for my frail human body to hold upright. I was morphing! My human host was rebelling against me, and he was doing it by triggering my morphing power!

Eric took the opening immediately, swinging his knife arm back and knocking the Dracon Beam out of Cody's hand. He took off at a full forward run, barreling past me, Cody on his heels.

"Stop him you fool!" I yelled out, clamping down hard on my host. But I didn't stop morphing. He had made a good choice for me, the morph of a Hork-Bajir warrior. I needed something with arms that could grab, good hearing, and speed. Hork-Bajir eyesight was a drawback, but it provided all of those strengths to compensate.

He played an interesting game of chess, my human host. He knew that I would regain control almost immediately, and he knew that I'd likely approve of the choice of a Hork-Bajir. He hoped to get another few seconds of control once the morph was completed, a weakness of fighting a new morph's instincts for the first time.

But I was not going to have those problems this time. I was not a stranger to the form or mind of a Hork-Bajir. I had been a Hork-Bajir-Controller before.

I didn't bother gloating when at last my host had realized his error. I had another human host to hunt down. I ran at the speed of a human dog, the claws of my talons clanging against the pavement of the sidewalk. I found Cody unconscious two blocks down the road. Evidently my prey was smarter than I'd anticipated.

«Hah, that's right, Yeerk!» my host taunted. «Your little 'friendship' plan backfired, and now he KNOWS! He'll go to my mom, my brother, and you'll be finished!» I could see his fantasy very clearly, his mother and brother and boyfriend surrounding me, human weapons trained on me, demanding that I release their loved one or die. Eric making a touching speech, before pulling the trigger, saying how he loved Chris too much to see him as a host. Me crawling out of his ear, and the others getting him to a hospital in time.

Underneath it all, his thoughts were more grim than that. He wasn't the idiot that his fantasy portrayed – he knew the end was coming. He knew that soon, very soon, all of his loved ones would be infested or dead. Everyone in this town would. And still, he could deny his own perceptions enough to have this absurd dream.

Humans. Who could explain them?

I lifted my Hork-Bajir nose to the wind and took a good sniff. There it was, just on the edge of my senses – the scent of fear. Coming from… above me?

I looked up.

CLANK! The butcher knife fell from the sky, the intensity of gravity slicing it through one Hork-Bajir eye. "GFFFAAAAAAHHH!" I bellowed. Eric continued climbing the tree even as I ripped out the knife. It was a critical wound, but I wasn't willing to demorph just yet. Not when he'd made the mistake of trying to use a tree as cover against a Hork-Bajir. Climbing trees is what they used to live for.

In no time at all, I was eye-to-eye with my terrified prey. Perched safely in a spot where I knew he was cornered, I began my demorph. Slowly, as he watched, horrified, his beloved's features replaced those of the inhuman monster he'd stabbed.

"Now let's be sensible," I said to Eric. "It's not really all that bad." I was going to say more, but no longer being a Hork-Bajir, I was no longer distributing my weight in a way that was good for the tree. Two human children on a tree branch inevitably leads to a broken tree branch.

Down we flew, the height not great enough to kill but great enough to injure. Sure enough, the bone in my leg snapped in two, and Eric was spared only because he landed on top of me. I started to feel my head go numb, as I'd hit it on the pavement.

"Don't worry, Chris," Eric's voice was saying, though it was already starting to sound distant. "I'll get that Yeerk out of you."

--

Author's Note (10/6/08): The following note was written originally as an OOC addendum to my chapter. I still believe it an important message, so I'm leaving it here:

_Sorry that took so long. Lost faith in F.F. for awhile there. _

_Also, I was put through the "Age Verification" system when I went to post this section of the story. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is just one of many, many ways in which children have been and will continue to be made into the new second-class citizens of the world. We are not so much different from the Yeerks, we humans. We constantly feel the need to control others. Once we controlled black people, once we controlled women. We did this by calling them "inferior", by proclaiming that they couldn't possibly understand the world about them the way that the white man does._

_That's the precise same argument being used against every child today. They are also being told that they are "inferior"… that they don't get it, and never can "until they're older". I am aware that a lot of my readership is either under 13 or just over it. As someone who is now older, I can assure you – that old line is not true. I understood it just fine then. Please, kids – take some control of yourselves. Do /not/ let things like this continue. Start questioning the rules. Start asking "Why?" and asking it a lot, and if you don't get an answer that you like, then re-educate the supposedly "wiser" adults around you. If you can gather together and, as a group, oppose some of these ridiculous acts of discrimination being pushed on you, maybe you can stop this before it gets any further. Because the next step is state-imposed curfews. Dress codes. Language standards. Some of them even want to start shoving tracking chips in your bodies so they can keep tabs on you. And if they can get you to accept their control now, while you're kids? That makes you easy-to-control adults, too. And then they can /really/ run things the way they want._

_Okay, I'll get off my soap box now. But please, for all our sakes' – fight back. Prove them wrong. Show them that a human is a human, regardless of color, creed, or even how long they've been breathing air on the planet._


	9. Despairing

The sound of the ambulance sirens was the first thing I was aware of. They sounded impossibly loud, and getting louder by the moment. As if the ambulance's intent was to come and run me over. Just when it couldn't get any louder, the sound stopped, replaced by the sound of doors opening and slamming. Feet moving.

"How long has he been unconscious?" an adult male voice asked, concern evident in his voice.

"About twenty minutes," a youthful reply assured him, trying to sound more confident than he was.

There was a touch on my leg, and although I didn't feel much pain, I involuntarily gasped. "Definitely broken," a third voice, female, contributed. "And it looks like he has a mild concussion, too." I felt my body being lifted off the ground and moved to one side.

"Do you want to ride with him?" the female asked kindly. I didn't hear a verbal reply as I was again treated to the sensation of rising from the ground, though this time no one was grabbing onto me. I must have been placed on a platform of some kind. Some dim part of my mind started to realize that it was probably a stretcher, and that I was probably being placed into the back of the ambulance.

The siren started up again, though this time it didn't seem so bad, and I felt the sensations that I instantly recognized as being in a moving vehicle. With this realization, I started to wonder: had the youth decided to go with me? Was his voice… familiar, somehow?

My eyes opened. The ceiling of the ambulance greeted me, a horrible puke-green color with a dangling IV tube on one side. I tried to move my eyes left, to see if anyone was with me, but they wouldn't respond. I tried to move my fingers and toes, but they wouldn't respond either. For a blissful moment, I entertained the thought that whatever accident I'd been in had paralyzed me. But then I felt the youth's hand clutch mine, and I felt my own hand squeeze back, and I remembered exactly where my paralysis had come from. And how long I had lived with it.

"Eric," my mouth weakly murmured.

A patch of Eric's dirty blonde hair drifted into my vision as he leaned inward, whispering into my ear. "Just relax, Chris," he stated, his tone firm but gentle. "We're on our way to a hospital now. They'll be able to do something... about your leg, /and/ about the Yeerk in your head."

My head shook back and forth. "It's out," my voice declared. "I think it died when I hit the ground."

Eric pulled his face back to make eye contact with me, and rolled his eyes. "If you seriously expect me to believe that, Yeerk, then it's amazing you were ever able to fool anyone."

Orkath, my Yeerk, turned my head to look at the ambulance driver. He was watching the road, of course, and chatting with his colleague, but I could make out the name on his license, which hung prominently to one side of the dash. James Loper. Somehow, that name seemed familiar to me.

Glancing back at Eric, I felt a wave of cocky arrogance from my Yeerk. «He /is/ a stubborn fellow, isn't he?»

«He's smart,» I replied, uneasy that my Yeerk didn't feel beaten, but feeling confident about the situation anyway. Just the thought that a few hours from now, I could be free! «And he's not going to believe he's saved me... or stop trying... until he sees you crawl out of my head. Looks like your days are numbered.»

Orkath didn't bother replying to me, instead focusing on Eric. "I fooled you for awhile," he goaded.

Eric only shrugged. He was trying to stay tough, but he looked a little hurt. "So what was the plan, exactly? Get me to fall for you, then convince me to join the Sharing and put one of your friends in my head?"

I felt my mouth curve into a grim smile. "That's about the gist of it," Orkath admitted. "You'll get used to it. Chris has been my host for a year now." I was shocked. Had it been a year? Had I really been out of control of my life for a whole year?

Eric seemed to think about that for a minute. "So then... I never met Chris. Not /really/."

«Oh no!» I cried. «Please, you have to tell him I love him! Don't let him think he doesn't know me!» I pleaded with my Yeerk, begged. But something serious had changed in him, after the Governor's announcement. He merely took my anguish as a badge of pride.

"I've acted mostly like him," the Yeerk replied. "I've needed to, to keep from arousing suspicion amongst his family and friends. So in a way, you've met him."

At this point, I could see Eric's curiosity overriding his nervousness, his hurt, even his anger. I couldn't blame him. There was a time when I would have given anything to talk to a real alien. But I could feel nervous for him, and worry about him letting his guard down. Those things, I definitely did do. Especially when it occurred to me - the Yeerk must have been in some real pain, with my broken leg. Why hadn't he morphed and repaired it yet?

"Can he see and hear me?" Eric asked. "The real Chris, I mean?"

My head nodded slightly. "Yes," he replied, a sneer on his face. "In fact, even now he's wondering why I haven't used my morphing powers to fix my leg."

Eric missed the impact of that statement. "Morphing..." he repeated. "That's when you turned into that monster, right?"

"Hork-Bajir," Orkath corrected. "They come from a different planet, one we took over before we came to this one."

"Is that some ability Yeerks have?"

My smile grew. "It is now," Orkath noted pridefully.

Eric was about to say something else, but suddenly the inside of the ambulance became dark. Apparently it had entered a tunnel of some kind, and light was no longer coming in through the back windows. As soon as the darkness enveloped us, I could feel my body beginning to shrink. I couldn't see the changes, but I could feel the feather impressions and sharp talons I had come to associate with my golden eagle morph.

"There's no tunnel on the way to the hospital," Eric complained, and it was then that I remembered very clearly where I'd heard the name James Loper before. At an awards ceremony held by the Sharing.

James Loper was a human-Controller.

«Don't worry,» Orkath said to Eric, now using thought-speech as we finished the change to hawk. «It won't hurt. Much. You'll rather enjoy it, I think. And I'll make sure you get to spend all the time with Chris that you want. In the cages.» Injury healed, he began the return trip towards my natural, human form.

Eric started to ram his body up against the back of the ambulance, but the doors had been locked and the handles on the inside were secured. He looked panicked, but still managed to retain some composure until the ambulance emerged into the Yeerk Pool complex and he could see out the windows; then, panic gave way to sheer hysteria.

"Nooo! You're not taking me! You're not taking me!" Eric cried, but his protests were useless. The ambulance came to a halt, and Martin, along with a Hork-Bajir-Controller, was there to receive the Yeerks' new prisoner.

My own screams echoed Eric's. «You can't do this to him! What about the partnership! What about being in the closet! What about liking it all in secret!»

Orkath's feelings were still very clear to me. He was upset about something. Hurt. But in his best sarcastic tone, he replied, «I was... how do you humans put it? Ah yes. 'Going through a phase.'»

Orkath stepped out of the ambulance, moving forward to the infestation pier. He kept my eyes riveted on the spot, and enjoyed my torment as I watched Eric's head jammed into the pool's sludgy water, and saw the tip of the Yeerk slug as it crawled it's way into his ear.

Eric was a Controller now. Just like me.

Just like me.


	10. Fighting

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Author's Note:_ I already hear people screaming "Wait a minute! The battle with Lieutenant Colonel Larsen happened _**before**_ the Governor's speech! Continuity glitch! KASU! Or ASU, at least!" What I offer to these skeptics is that the Governor's speech was probably replayed every hour on TV for almost a full day or two before the Yeerks managed to squash it. So Eric and Chris heard the __first__ broadcasting of the newscast, while the one the Animorphs hear at the end of Book #51 is a taped repeat of the announcement._

_That is the formal, "official" explanation for the purposes of this fan fiction._

_If you don't like that explanation, you can think of the following events as one of the many, many battles that took place /after/ the governor's speech, because certainly it would take more than one encounter to free all the rounded up National Guard troops. And if you don't like /that/, then feel free to declare that I messed up and just move on._

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Watching the horror on Eric's face as he lost control of his body went beyond the pain that I'd felt when I'd turned Cody and Martin into Controllers. The way he stared back at me seemed to confirm Orkath's long ago taunt – that his last free thought was, indeed, that I'd led him to it. But I didn't feel pity for him as I saw the defiance radiating in his face, or despair that his struggle with his Yeerk would be hopeless, as mine always was. Because as monumental as this small defeat was for me, personally, I knew the larger events of the night were more important. My mother and brother, Eric's parents… every non-Controller in our town was now aware of the Yeerk invasion. When I got home that night, my family was going to be looking at me with new eyes. Suspicious eyes. Orkath knew how to imitate me perfectly, but his duties as a Yeerk soldier mandated that he do at least a few things that were out of character for me. Eventually, my family would catch on. Assuming they didn't simply demand that I remain in their sight for the next three days, just to be sure.

«If they did that, I'd have to kill them,» Orkath threatened, though there was no anger or malice in his feelings. «Or contain them until I could get my people to take them. What you think is so great an event, Chris, is actually the beginning of the end for your people.»

Martin helped Eric up to his feet, and Eric… the Yeerk in Eric's head marched his body towards us. Extended a hand to me, which "I" took. "Ewell Five-Nine-Three of the Sulp Niar pool," he announced in greeting. "You have my thanks for my new host."

My mouth curved into a smile, but my Yeerk felt no joy at his accomplishment. Strangely, he seemed to regret what he'd done. "Orkath One-Seven-Two," he replied.

Eric looked impressed. "You're in the one hundreds already?" he asked, looking to Martin for confirmation. Martin nodded his head. "That's impressive. Perhaps if I tell Visser One about your success over this host, even after he'd discovered you, you might make Sub-Visser."

Orkath shook my head. "I'd rather not take the chance of discussing anything with the Visser now," he admitted. "After their governor's assault of us, I'm sure he's going to be enraged." He motioned towards the infestation pier. "While I'm here, I might as well feed. In case my host's parents become a problem."

With that, Orkath moved us into line on the pier, behind a Hork-Bajir-Controller and a voluntary human woman. The usual routine was followed, and once my Yeerk left me, I was again placed in a Ramonite box. It was hard to believe that it was only my second time, and this one was premature – four days, I had been morph-capable. So much had happened that it already felt like four hundred. A morph-capable ice cream vendor was placed in the cage with me, but I didn't feel like speaking to him. I curled up in a ball in the corner of the cage and just cried.

I wasn't usually a crier, in the cages. Plenty of people were. I guess they valued their freedom to cry, to let out the pain and suffering that the most recent three days had added to their lives. I preferred talking because, ironically, I had become a much more social person since I'd been infested. I realized now why so many kids had picked on me before. It was because I was uptight around them, so determined to be liked that I never bothered to think about things like common interests, or even really thinking about what they had to say. But with people in the cages it was different, because I knew something about the pain that they were in, the need that they had to tell someone, anyone, about what was happening to them. I knew how to listen and I knew how to talk, and that made me fit in with my fellow captives in a way that I'd never been able to accomplish in school. I wasn't sure if it was my situation, or just something my Yeerk taught me in the way he interacted with people. But in a very small, funny way, the Sharing had kept it's promise to me, and made me truly belong.

I felt a strong, gruff hand on my back, rubbing gently up and down in an attempt to comfort me. "There there, son," the adult captive murmured, "it'll be okay. You'll be okay."

I looked up at him, wiping the tears from my eyes. "Yeah," I replied, but there was no enthusiasm in my voice.

"They know now, y'know," he told me, pointing up towards the surface. "Our families, our friends know."

I pointed in the direction of the pool. "My friend knows now, too," I pointed out despairingly. "Knowing isn't always a good thing."

The man hugged me. I don't know why it made me feel better, but it did. I guess he just didn't have any more words to try to cheer me up with. For a long time, we stayed that way, silent. After awhile I felt a strange, tingling sensation… a feeling of being far away, relaxed. Passive. It was a nice feeling, and for awhile I felt like I might just go to sleep.

I was about to say something to the vendor, but then Tom's thought-speak voice permeated the entirety of the Yeerk pool complex. He enjoyed using the power in place of a human megaphone. «All Morph-Capables, assemble at Entrance Eleven! This is not a drill! The human rebels are attacking one of our recruiting stations!»

I exchanged a grimace with the man, then looked towards the doors to the box, knowing they'd be back for us soon. Sure enough, the box opened and two Hork-Bajir dragged us out, pushing us as rapidly as possible towards the pier.

Once Orkath was in my head again, he approached the somewhat panicked Eric. "I'm afraid you'll have to walk home without me," he announced. "Cover for me with your host's parents – say I went home because I was scared for my family, after the governor's speech."

Eric nodded, and I wished that I could speak to the real Eric, comfort him.

«Don't worry,» Orkath assured me. «I'll make sure you get to speak with him. In three days.» It sounded like a snide comment, but I could tell that he was trying once again, in his own way, to make peace. Were all Yeerks this insane? Did they all bounce back and forth between showing affection for their hosts and then tormenting them? It was like I had two different Yeerks controlling me. Sometimes I hated the nice one more. I hated knowing he could be capable of such kindness, when more often than not, he chose the path of cruelty.

We assembled at the specified entrance, everyone who was available. The two sixth-graders, Rob and Ulie, were there. So was Tom, Jason, Martin, the ice cream vendor, about ten adult human-Controllers I didn't know, and one morph-capable Hork-Bajir-Controller. Tom was in his jaguar morph, one seriously dangerous cat. I'd learned in science class that they were often confused with leopards, but that you could tell the difference by looking for small dots or irregular shapes within the larger rosette markings. They also had a more stocky and muscular body and a shorter tail. My own cougar morph was very likely no match for such a powerful kitty.

«According to radio-ins,» Tom's Yeerk briefed us, «there are seven human rebels in the containment area across from the quad, led by my host's brother, the tiger. They're systematically playing hit-and-run games to get more of the new host body National Guard troops to leave the containment area. Once we clear the entrance, the adult human-Controllers should morph to wolves or cheetahs and keep the new hosts contained. My squadron and I, and Ryall Three-Three-One, will engage the bandits.»

Naturally, there was no time for anyone to ask questions, so the jaguar nodded it's head and Ulie led the group up the dropshaft and into an abandoned warehouse building. We could already hear the roar of the tiger, the shouts of the guards, and what sounded like the snort of an elephant. I don't mind admitting that I was scared. I'd been in one battle with the human bandits, but that encounter was brief and the Yeerk's goal had always been to get away and get reinforcements. Now I was going to be forced to charge into a fight to the death, a fight where I would either kill my would-be saviors or be killed by them.

That thought stayed heavy in my mind even as my ears began to grow short and rounded, whiskers sprouting on my face. My Yeerk had forgotten to undress me, so my purple and green striped shirt was shredded as the strong forelegs of the cougar replaced my own weak human arms. Yellow-buff fur spread out all over my body, and a black-tipped tail shot out of my bum. Overall, I was one of the first to finish the morphing process, though I wish I hadn't been. Jason had an identical cougar morph, Ulie and Rob morphed hyenas, Martin morphed an osprey, and the Hork-Bajir-Controller morphed the one animal his Hork-Bajir host feared more than any other – the deadly skunk. True to their orders, the adult humans all morphed to wolf, save a news anchorwoman who stayed in her human form to open the gates for us. Gates that even now, the humans on the other side were trying to break open in order to escape.

The wolves flanked the outside, to keep any escaping humans contained, and the woman climbed up the steps to the machine control panel that controlled the operation of the solid steel barrier. With the push of a button, the gates opened.

We moved as fast as our morphed bodies could carry us, Jason and I announcing the squadron's arrival with loud cougar roars. Every human, human-Controller and morphed human paused for one moment to acknowledge our arrival.

It gave me time to survey the enemy forces. Tiger. Another wolf. African Elephant. Rhinoceros. Ox. Another osprey. And the one animal that sent a shiver up the edge of my spine – a grizzly bear! It had been a long time since I'd seen one up close, but he looked just as large, just as terrifying, as the one who'd chased me and Craig through the woods in that lifetime when I'd been a normal, uninfested human boy.

«ATTACK!» Tom shouted.

The moment passed, and everyone remembered they were there to fight a battle. With another roar, my Yeerk entered the fray, dodging dracon fire from an uninfested guard who'd managed to grab a weapon. We circled around to stalk the enemy wolf before it could join the Yeerk wolves and get lost in the confusion.

«Die, rebel!» my Yeerk cried, leaping at the wolf with the cougar's powerful hind legs. But this wolf had the intelligence of a rebel warrior, and it easily anticipated and sidestepped my landing point. Taking the opportunity, it sank its wolf teeth into the flesh on my right shoulder. «AHHHH!»

One of the hyenas came to my aid, knocking the wolf off it's haunches and flipping over with it on the ground. «Help!» I heard a girl's voice cry out. «It's got me!»

«I got your back!» another girl's voice replied, as the ox booted the hyena off of it's opponent. My Yeerk once again got involved, leaping onto the ox's back and sinking sharp cougar claws into it's back. Now it was the rebel's turn to let out a thought-speak scream. Thought-speech isn't as easily filtered out as normal speech, so the mass of rebels and Yeerks shouting and screaming quickly became a din in my head, and I was unable to really distinguish one voice from another.

«You glarfash harrac!» someone shouted, and I knew it was the Hork-Bajir skunk. Strange, even in morph, the languages were mixed and meshed together. The skunk turned on the grizzly, raised its tail, and fired its scent-bomb right into the bear's nose. My sensitive cougar senses were quite offended, but I was grateful – at least now Orkath would smell that bear coming and get out of the way.

One of the Yeerk-controlled wolves burst into the fray. «Human soldiers! A battalion, four hundred strong, coming this way!»

«Close the gates!» Tom ordered, and the human who'd stayed outside started to comply. But an osprey shot out of the sky and slammed into her stomach, causing her to fall thirty feet from the control panel to the ground below.

My body turned to take a run towards the controls, but Jake's tiger morph landed right in front of me, teeth bared, growling.

«Hello, Jake,» Orkath greeted, enjoying the effect that hearing "my" thought-speak voice might have on him, since we'd been acquainted. Then he leaped towards the tiger, swinging a paw to slash across Jake's face. The tiger turned his head into it and caught the paw between his teeth, rapidly swaying his head back and forth to rip a chunk of flesh off.

«AHHH!» Orkath screamed again, swinging the other paw to shake Jake off. This one found its mark, smashing across the side of the tiger's face and leaving slash marks on his eye and ear. In pain, the tiger let go.

And then the elephant sent my body flying.

THUD! I landed on the pavement at the far side of the battle, several bones smashed up. The pain was so bad that even though it was mostly the Yeerk's, I could still feel a bit of it. Defeated, the Yeerk began the process of demorphing. As my human ears emerged from the cougar's, I heard the sound of tank treads smashing into the warehouse. Then the sound of a human on a megaphone.

"This is Lieutenant Colonel Larsen of the State National Guard," a strong, authoritative human voice announced. "Any Yeerk forces in this area have two minutes to surrender, or we will open fire." The announcement was followed by the sounds of several dozen cocked rifles. The Yeerk raised my head to look at the assembled troops. Undoubtedly, some of the assembled troops were human-Controllers. But the hardened looks on the battalions' faces made it clear that most were not.

The human bandits pulled back from their positions and moved to fall in line with the human soldiers. Of course, the grizzly bear was given a wide berth, because of its odor.

Orkath's people, including all the wolves, moved forward and turned to form a line of Controllers.

My demorph completed, the Yeerk picked up an errant human gun and joined the ranks of Controllers, in the rear. An infested national guardsman stepped up to speak for the Yeerks. "We don't take orders from lower lifeforms," he sneered. "It is _**you**_ who will surrender, or witness the annihilation of your forces." With that, most of the Controllers aimed weapons at the remaining captive troops, those who hadn't made their way out or died trying. "Drop your weapons or they get it."

The Lieutenant Colonel looked at the tiger, undoubtedly receiving a private thought-speak message. With a grim nod, he turned to face us again. His eyes locked with mine, and he hesitated a moment, surprised to see a human child in the midst of the enemy forces. But he knew what I was. And who he was dealing with.

"Fire," he ordered.


	11. Complicating

A split second was all it took for a full war zone to erupt within the confines of the warehouse. On the Lieutenant Colonel's order, the human battalion let loose a barrage of rifle fire. In a normal engagement, both sides have some form of cover to hide behind and shoot from, but this was not a normal engagement - the only things to hide behind were other living, breathing bodies. Of course, Orkath got no resistance from me in his attempt at our self-preservation, dropping to the ground as quickly as possible.

The Yeerks didn't make idle threats - once fired on, they didn't return fire immediately, instead emptying as many rounds of gun- and Dracon-fire into the hostages as possible. Their terrified running created a momentary cover for the Yeerk forces, who took the time to regroup over their own dead and slam hard into the humans' lines.

Orkath began concentrating on our cougar morph, but he'd barely started when a thought-speak interrupted us. «Orkath!» Tom's Yeerk cried out, his jaguar leaping into the fray, closing his teeth tightly around a human officer. «Morph to something unobtrusive and get back to the pool. Tell Visser One we need reinforcements.»

Of course, I could feel Orkath's fear. Reporting bad news to Visser One was frequently a death sentence. But staying in the battle wasn't exactly safe either, so he reversed the morphing process and kept my head low, bullets and Dracon beams still whizzing over us.

"Which morph?" Orkath wondered aloud, flipping through memories of the morphs we'd acquired. A visual picture of the Gardens entered my head, a memory from a few days ago. Of the mosquito that had approached us, looking for a quick meal.

Ignoring the screams of pain and rage all around, Orkath focused my brain on that image, and we began to slowly shrink. Schloop! The long, pointed mouth of the mosquito - nature's own syringe - jutted out of my human face. My hair shriveled into my scalp until it had virtually disappeared. My body started to split and segment into the body of an insect.

It was the bear that noticed first. «They're sending a bug out for help! Get it!» And suddenly, the large body of the animal I feared most charged towards me. Knocking human-Controllers to one side and then the other, the bear closed the distance, increasing speed with the intent to stomp me into the ground. Twenty feet! Fifteen! Ten feet! Just as it seemed like we were finished, the shrinking process kicked in with furious speed and I felt the tremors of the bears paw's on either side of my body, running literally over us the way trains sometimes pass over people who're fortunate enough to find a safe spot between the rails. The stench from the skunk's attack on it was horrendous, even to the poor olfactory senses that my mosquito body possessed.

The bear skidded to a halt and turned, and this time I was sure we'd be stomped. I could smell him coming, slow and deliberate. But one of the human-Controllers had finally noticed our plight, and fired a Dracon beam that literally burned off the bear's front paw. Injured and pained, the bear skulked back to demorph. Orkath turned my head to see which way the rebel was going, but then, with a final POP, the compound eyes of the mosquito replaced my human vision, and the morph was complete.

The mosquito had died and gone to heaven. Blood was EVERYWHERE! A feast so big that it would take lifetime upon lifetime to even /think/ about devouring it all! It wasn't a long flight to the first large, oozing puddle, coming from a pink mound with hairs all over it. The mosquito spread it's wings and tried to fly over.

Here's the thing, though - no one will ever hire a mosquito to be a helicopter pilot. Even the mosquito instincts had no idea how to make the frail, shoddy wings move against a backdraft of wind. And there was plenty of backdraft here!

_Of course,_ I reasoned to myself. _It's the people running around_. _They're causing all the wind force._ And that's when I realized that no one was controlling the morph - that once again, both Orkath and I had been swept up in the mosquito's primitive mind. And again, since Orkath hadn't awakened yet, control of the morph was now mine. Unfortunately, "control" wasn't something that even the mosquito had all that much of, and I had no idea how to use what limited control I had to de-rail the Yeerks' efforts.

At least the battle was no longer a problem. Most bullets were the size of tanks to my mosquito body, and they seemed to move slow enough that I could avoid being hit directly. The air distortions they were creating was another story, though.

After a few moments, I felt control wrested from me as Orkath also came out of his daze. But for a good ten minutes he was just as useless with the body as I was.

«Aha!» he finally announced to me, though talking mostly to himself. «The bullets are all being fired into the battle, so I bet I can just ride the air currents away from it!» It seemed like a ridiculous idea to me, but, to my surprise, it seemed to be working. At least it /looked/ like the strange blobs we were seeing with our eyes were getting less frequent, and the blood smell was starting to be further away.

«See?» Orkath assured me. «This is easy to control, once one gets the hang of it. Now… towards the pool.»

I snickered. «And how are you going to find the pool from here?» I asked. «You can barely get out of the warehouse.»

«Don't worry, I'll find it,» Orkath replied testily. For over an hour, he wandered towards a smell that he thought might be the Yeerk pool. Wobbling from one direction to another with such inconsistency that I couldn't make anything out of the kaleidoscope vision that we had.

At first it was good to just wander like that. The adrenaline had left my system when we'd morphed, but mentally I still needed to calm down, to stop thinking about the terrible ordeal we'd just endured. Finally, though, it was getting to the point that I actually /wanted/ to help him, just to kill the monotony. «Y'know, the battle's probably over already. Why don't you just demorph and see where we are? We're obviously away from the battle.»

I could tell Orkath was annoyed, but he relented. We grew quickly, wings retracting, and quickly, we had my human body back again. But the body was /tired/. Exhaustion kicked in so hard that Orkath fell on my butt as soon as he'd finished. I could hear myself breathing heavily.

"Andalites… said… too many… morphs… tiring," Orkath announced aloud, in my voice. When he realized that he wasn't talking to anyone and that it took too much energy to speak, he reverted to sending thoughts into my head. «I guess I believe them now.»

I looked at our surroundings. Not that I could move my eyes, but I could focus on what the Yeerk was looking at, and I recognized it pretty quickly.

«A fire escape,» I announced. «We're on a fire escape.»

Sure enough, when Orkath stood up and looked down, we could see that we were on the second floor of a fire escape on the outside of a building. Probably the same building that the battle had just occurred in. Rising to my feet, he lowered the ladder so that he could climb down into the alley below.

A middle school kid in his underwear in a dark alley is a very strange and unusual thing, but Orkath just couldn't summon up the energy to morph again. Glancing around the corner, he took note of a bank clock.

«Four A.M,» I said. «It'll be dawn soon.»

Glancing around the area, the Yeerk took note of a blue Toyota Corolla whose lights were on. Strutting over to it and peeking inside, he took note of a young lady, in her twenties, and I could feel the relief emanating from him. He knocked on the passenger door.

"Huh? What're you doin', kid?" the woman complained, staring incredulously at us as he opened the door and sat inside.

"I need a ride to Parker Middle," Orkath told her. "And drop the pretense, nobody's watching. It's an emergency."

The woman sighed. "Everything's an emergency today," she complained. "I've almost got one! She said she'd let me take her to an underground club if I let her pick up a chemical of some kind first. She'll be in the pool tonight."

Orkath rolled my eyes. "You /do/ know that their governor made a speech against us tonight, right? And that a National Guard battalion just opened fire on loyal Yeerk troops?"

From the surprise on the Controller woman's eyes, she obviously didn't know. She immediately pulled out of the driveway, unconcerned about the junkie who was relying on her for a ride. Just as well, really - she'd been inadvertently spared from infestation. In a way, I felt happy that I was partly responsible.

"It was horrible," Orkath raved. "Not a single acknowledgement of us as a species. Not a single ounce of praise." I could feel the Yeerk's anger, hir outrage.

«/That's/ why you're hurt?» I asked incredulously. «Because we didn't give you kudos for wrecking our lives?»

«You don't understand,» Orkath retorted hotly. «There are certain courtesies that any being should automatically know how to give to another! Even under flag of war.»

I was shocked! My potential boyfriend had been made a host, all that progress with my Yeerk had been undone… all over a basic cultural misunderstanding! «Geez, Orkath, we /do/ feel those things, we just don't announce them… it's a game face.»

«Game face?» Orkath asked.

«Yeah,» I urged. «You know, like when we play baseball and coach says to always give that pitcher 'the stare', make him think he's got nothing? /We/ know he's a good pitcher, but we're playing against him, so we psyche him out. We praise him in private, but we never tell him until after the game is over.»

I could feel Orkath searching my memories, absorbing my beliefs. I could tell that my words were having effect. Still, the Yeerk stubbornly shook my head. "Too late now," he said.

"For what?" the driver lady asked, staring curiously between him and the road.

"Nothing," he replied quickly. "Just… thinking about something."

The car pulled up in front of the school and we got out, rushing quickly to the boys' locker room to get supplemental clothing. Martin and Cody were already in there when I arrived.

"You guys made it out!" Orkath announced, relief clear in his voice.

"Yeah," Martin nodded somberly, "but Nako Three-One-Eight didn't make it."

Nako Three-One-Eight. Rob's Yeerk. Which meant that Rob didn't make it, either. He was younger than I was, a sixth-grader. I'd never known him as a non-Controller, but if the Yeerk in his head was playing the role appropriately, he was an outgoing kid and, for his size, a pretty decent center fielder. He had a strong passion for model airplanes. I'd wondered whether he'd considered the chance to morph, to fly, as a small consolation for the horrors he'd endured while under the Yeerks' control. I'd never gotten the chance to ask him.

Now I never would.

I wondered about his parents. They'd never even known that they'd lost Rob, all that time ago when he was taken. And they'd never know the joy of getting him back. Worse, their son's death was an omen for their own freedom, as well. If he'd died in morph, then there was no body, and no way of satisfying grieving parents with any kind of rational explanation. No, the only way they wouldn't react would be if they were made into Controllers. And only after they were slaves would the Yeerks tell them what became of their son. Maybe.

«They'll be told,» Orkath told me somberly. «I'll see to it.» I wondered if the gesture was a sign that he'd started to understand what I'd said.

Cody pointed towards the outer doors. "Tom wants a quick meeting in the afternoon to go over what happened. And where we stand now."

My head nodded. "I'll be there," the Yeerk assured them. "I really have to check in with my host's parents, though. If I don't show up, my cover might be blown."

Cody sighed, nodding grimly. "I'm sure there'll be enough Yeerks with that predicament soon enough."

On the walk home, I wanted to try to reach Orkath some more, but I wasn't sure whether I should push the point. Of course, Orkath was aware of all those thoughts, and the fact that he didn't try to engage me in conversation just suggested all the more that I should keep quiet about it, let him find out in his own due time.

When we walked in the front door, I felt my heart skip a beat.

There, sitting around the living room, were my mother, my brother, and two men, one of whom I recognized as a private detective. They all seemed like they'd been waiting for me.

With a surge of hope and joy, I sensed my Yeerk's nervousness. His trepidition. "What's going on?" my mouth asked.

"Chris, sit down," was all my mom instructed.

I could tell Orkath was thinking about bolting. He searched my brain to see if I had any tactical insight, which, unfortunately, I did. He obediently took a seat, because he agreed with what I'd been thinking - that his morphing power was the hidden advantage. If they did try to forcibly take him, he could just allow it and then morph his way out of danger.

Both Orkath and I tried to brace ourselves, but when we heard the words come out of the man's mouth, Orkath had to ask for them to be repeated. Because they were miles away from anything we were expecting to hear.

"Chris, you're the boy who used to be in Cub Scout Pack 472, right? The last one to see a Craig Tozier?" The man took note of the recognition in my face. Yes, Orkath was quite familiar with my memories of Craig. "Well, we think we've found him, over in Glen County, and we'd like you to come with us an identify him."

The Yeerk did his best to make me seem happy. "You… you did? That's great! How is he, is he okay?"

My mom looked down at the ground, and my brother wrapped his arm affectionately around my shoulder. "Son, whatever happened to him after he escaped from the bear, it left the right side of his body smashed, punctured a lung and shattered one of his pelvic bones. He's confined to a wheelchair, and he's suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder that makes his mind wander a lot."

Now the Yeerk tried to make me look sad. That was infinitely easier. "But.. he's alive?"

The man nodded. "Yeah, he's alive. Doing well, too. He's made a lot of friends at the rehab center. In fact, that's how we found him. About a month ago we got a call from a very concerned, sympathetic kid about your age who stays with him in the center."

The flicker of a smile crossed the man's face. "They seemed like pretty good friends. The kid's name is James."


	12. Ascending

"They call themselves Animorphs," Tom announced. Or at least, as I'm sure is painfully obvious by now, the Yeerk in Tom's head. Exas One-Oh-Six, but that was just his name, now, not his rank. Despite the losses taken during the battle with the National Guard, Exas had somehow managed to put a positive spin on everything to Visser One. The Visser didn't strike me as being easily manipulated, but Exas had a way with him, a finesse, that no other Yeerk had been able to manage. And so Exas One-Oh-Six was now Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine. The rank came with a prestigious position, as well – Chief of Security for the Yeerk Pool ship, which was still in orbit around Earth. He had a personal Bug fighter at his disposal and three Gedd-Controller attendants, and was scheduled to formally take the post later in the evening.

We were in the school cafeteria, with Sharing pamphlets and fliers all around us. Should any non-Controller walk by or step in, it would look like nothing more than a meeting to plan the Sharing's student club outings. But the haggard faces of the Yeerks around the table were anything but jovial. Their hidden invasion plans were bursting at the seams, and it showed.

"There are at least four human children that we know of. Jake Berenson, my host's younger brother, leads them. Cassie Godfrey, Rachel Garner and Marco Stalnaker have also been identified from photo surveillance in the governor's mansion and the California School for the Blind." He sighed. The reports he had gotten from Yeerk Intelligence about the rebels' actions in the Governor's office were obviously disturbing to him in every detail. "Marco and family were supposed to have been killed almost a year ago. Several Yeerks have been brought in for questioning regarding the discrepancy. They may be part of the traitorous resistance movement that's been growing within our ranks."

I knew about the resistance movement, of course. As I've said, my Yeerk was pretty high up in the hierarchy. Almost certain to be placed in command of the squadron, now that Tom's Yeerk was moving on. But I never really understood why there were Yeerks resisting. I guess I'd always assumed it was like any other war, where people turned sides for money or better power. Certainly I knew that in the larger war, the one between the Andalites and the Yeerks, there were double-agents on both sides. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that humans just didn't have the kinds of things that one traditionally offers a traitor. Not really. We weren't even really doing much in the way of space travel. All we had was the still under construction International Space Station, which already had a small Kandrona and a crew of three human-Controllers.

A kid I didn't recognize raised his hand. "I thought there were over twenty rebels in the battle at the school, where you got the cube?"

Orkath nodded my head in agreement. "Yes, I was mobbed by a group of rebels a few days ago, and they still maintained the need to demorph away from our view. There must still be some humans hiding within their society."

Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine nodded. "We believe that after my host's parents were taken and they were driven underground, these Animorphs responded by attempting to increase their numbers. The security camera at the school for the blind clearly shows them recruiting one of the kids, a girl named Elena Porter-Mims. Security failed to locate her after the attack." He put the papers down. "There are also at least two Andalites, one of whom fights in his natural form and the other using a hawk morph predominantly. We have to assume that the Andalites have another morphing cube and that attempts to increase members of the human resistance will also increase."

Ulie shrugged. "Such a very un-Andalite move, sharing their technology with these humans. Are they, perhaps, a rogue faction of the Andalite military? Perhaps they could be persuaded to join us?"

Tom shook his head. "Several times, the term 'Prince Jake' was heard in the bandits' public thought-speech. For whatever reason, these Andalites have decided that my host's brother is their commanding officer, and are likely following his instructions when they spread the technology."

"They may not /have/ to spread it any further," Mrs. Fisher, our seventh-grade biology teacher, complained. "Over one hundred and sixty Yeerks with school-aged hosts, including seventeen morph-capable hosts, have failed to report in since their governor's speech. On calling parents, almost a dozen blatantly declared that they were keeping their kids out on Monday, just to make sure that they'd been accounted for for three days."

A shudder went through my Yeerk and every other in the room. They all knew what being cut off from the Yeerk pool for three days would mean.

Tom nodded. "I want every Yeerk whose host can morph to be subjected to the morphing cube themselves, and acquire a bird morph. Our people need to be able to abandon their host bodies and fly back to the pool in emergencies like this." He glanced around at us. "Any ideas on how to save our brothers and sisters?"

It was Martin's Yeerk that came up with the solution. "What if we go in teams of two, checking on every unaccounted for Yeerk. One of us acquires their hosts and morphs them, 'sits in' for them while the other gets the Yeerk back to the pool."

Tom raised a curious eyebrow. "Not a bad idea." He turned to the rest of us. "Tie the real host up and have the Yeerk abandon it, it'll be easier to fly the Yeerks in and out of places."

My Yeerk glanced at Martin, impressed, and I couldn't help but wonder if he had seen Eric. The Yeerk in Eric's head had brought him home, I knew that much. But I didn't know anything about how Eric was adjusting, or more importantly, what he thought of me for leading him down the path to infestation. It was foolish to think Martin would know, of course. No, I would have to wait until I was in the cages with Eric to find any of that out.

Tom gestured towards me, confirming what Orkath and I had suspected. "Orkath is going to be taking charge of this unit once I move on, so take all your instructions from him." He turned to me. "There may be something of a ceremony once things calm down a bit, but for now, consider it a field promotion." He rose and placed his hands on my shoulders, a human way of showing support. "Orkath is hereby promoted to the rank of Sub-Visser, designation Eighty-Three."

«A Sub-Visser!» Orkath cried to me, elated. «Finally, some /real/ authority!» Out loud, he kept himself a little bit more composed. "I shall do my duty to my people, Sub-Visser."

Tom's pleased grin flashed across his face, the same look I saw when the true, real Tom had been feeling pride for Jake. "May the light of the Kandrona shine on you, Sub-Visser Eighty-Three." He raised his head to take in the entire group. "Report to the pool tonight to begin carrying out your assignments. Dismissed."

I sighed at Orkath. «Congratulations,» I murmured. «Now I suppose you'll get to hurt and kill my people more effectively.»

«It won't be like that,» Orkath lectured, as he stood my body up and stretched my arms out. «Now I'll have a hand in writing policy, not just enforcing it. I'll sit at the Visser's executive staff holdings. I'll be able to do things in a more Yeerkane way.»

«You mean 'humane',» I corrected. «Yeerkane would be the aggressive way.»

«Yeerks can be considerate, too,» Orkath insisted.

If I'd had control of my eyes, I'd have rolled them. «Wouldn't that be a little too out of the closet for you, old friend? A bit like me saying, 'Oh, I'm not gay, I'm just making really close friends with the new gay boy at school.'»

«Some straight humans do that, do they not?» Orkath mused.

«Yeah,» I conceded, «but most people make assumptions anyway. Even if they have girlfriends, people just say they're bi. It takes a lot of courage.»

«Are you implying that I am without a lot of courage?» Orkath inquired. Surprisingly, he didn't seem offended.

«Not that kind of courage,» I affirmed. «You were terrified of what they'd think of you for liking /baseball/, remember?»

Orkath sighed. «Very well, human,» he admonished. «If you doubt my courage, at least you certainly can't doubt my cunning, mmm?»

With a flash, Orkath replayed my memories of just that morning, after we'd been told that Craig was alive and at the rehab center. The detectives were again questioning my mom, but Orkath and I were so lost in memories of Craig and my joy at finally knowing that I /had/ saved him that we were only half-listening.

"You're sure you don't have a more exact address for the Toziers?" one detective was asking.

My mom nodded. "All I know is that they went to stay with relatives in Nebraska six months ago," she repeated for them. "They were so distraught when Craig was lost… I think they wanted to get away, for awhile."

My brother said the words I couldn't say. "Could we take him in, mom?" He gave the detectives his best 'puppy dog' look. "At least until you find his parents?"

The lead detective shrugged. "That depends on the center's staff, son." He looked at me. "We'll probably come to pick you up from school on Tuesday," he told me. "The staff assured me that it would be better to go on a weeknight. Too many visitors crowding the place on weekends. Mostly for the younger kids, but they'd still spread the staff too thin."

Orkath nodded my head, a little relieved. He'd been afraid that he was going to miss his Yeerk meeting. "Should I bring anything?" he asked, making my voice sound meek.

My mom grinned broadly. "Of course we'll get something for you to bring him, sweetheart! He's going to be very happy to see you after all this time." She moved to my side and put her arms around me, too. It'd been a long time since I'd felt that, my brother on one side, my mom on the other, giving me all that support. I tried to concentrate on holding that feeling, remembering it, so that I could recall it when I felt sad or alone.

Of course, there's some unwritten rule that whenever families get too hopeful in situations like that, the detectives have to go from good news bearers to buzz kill. "Bear in mind," he told us, "We're…" He stopped when he noticed the horrified look that Orkath put on my face. For a moment, he stared at us, puzzled. Then it hit him. "Oh, right. 'Bear.' Sorry, wrong choice of words." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, uh, remember, we're /mostly/ sure it's him, but it might not be. That's why we need you to come up and identify him." He shrugged. "Plus, we believe there are a lot of holes in his memory. He might not recognize you right away."

Orkath shrugged my shoulders. "I'm not afraid," he declared boastfully. "If he doesn't remember, I'll help him remember."

The detectives meandered towards the door, a subtle suggestion that their work was finished. As my mom moved to make the standard, casual conversation that adults make when they're parting company, my brother dragged me off into my room.

As soon as we were there, he closed the door, stared at me, and announced, "AHA! I've got you, Yeerk!"

For a moment, my heart fluttered. Orkath was jolted with fear, paralyzed with shock, staring at my brother in horror. But then he noticed the wide grin that was spread across my brother's face, and my spirits fell yet again.

Joking. My brother was joking around, mocking what he'd heard on the TV. He hadn't even the vaguest notion that he was right, that there really was a Yeerk wrapped around my brain.

Quickly, Orkath grabbed a pillow from my bed and tossed it at my brother. "You'll never take me alive, human!" he bellowed, exaggeratedly.

Being my brother, of course, the response was to instantly tackle me on the bed, ruffling my hair and running his fingers rapidly along my sides. The Yeerk convulsed madly, giggling escaping from him. Yeerks have a greater degree of control over the host body than the host would naturally. I guess it's because they're tapped into the brain's systems, so to speak, so they can control things like heart rate and breathing better than a human being could on his or her own.

But one thing the Yeerk had no control over was that fact that I was born very, very ticklish.

"Chance!" he whined, kicking at the bedspreads. "C'mon, stop!"

"Not until I tickle that Yeerk out of you!" my brother replied, waving one arm around like a champion wielding a sword while the other continued a furious attack on my ribs.

As the Yeerk finished playing back the memory, I realized something about that moment. Right then, Orkath One-Seven-Two of the Hett Simplatt pool was happy. He knew that Chance was trying to cheer me up, get my mind off the worries of what a reunion with my friend would be like, and he liked that feeling. He liked the idea of being part of my family. When he had to make an excuse to get to the school, he'd actually been bothered by having to leave.

«You do have a nice family,» Orkath agreed. «I don't know how much longer I can protect them, but I'm trying.»

«Protect them from what, infestation? If it's such a natural and good thing, Orkath, why would they need protecting?» It was a depressing point, but I felt the need to make it. Hey, I was addressing management, after all.

Orkath didn't answer me. I guess he wasn't sure what to say.

Martin followed us down into the pool area, talking as we went. "So… Sub-Visser," he acknowledged. "Congratulations."

Orkath grinned. "Thanks," he replied. "I knew my loyal service to the empire would be recognized someday."

Martin nodded. "So, you're taking Exas' old spot, and I've got yours… but we still need a replacement for Nako. Have you considered Ewell Five-Nine-Three?"

I remembered that designation very well. That was Eric's Yeerk. For a moment, I was thrilled with the idea of having him beside me. But then I remembered Rob, the poor little kid who'd been killed during our last fight with the Animorphs. «Say no, please,» I begged. «I don't want to see him involved like that. It's too dangerous.»

Orkath sighed in my head. «As you wish,» he assured me. Out loud, he replied, "Too fresh out of the pool." With a sardonic smirk, he added, "Besides, it would make my host too happy. You know how they feel for each other." To me, he added, «See? Cunning. I make it sound like I am being hostile to you, while doing you favors.»

There was a time when such little gifts would have caused me to mentally hug my Yeerk, but since our recent bonding in Eric's house, I knew he was capable of so much more than that. «That's great, but you're still going to destroy the planet. No more baseball, no more laughing family, no more relationship with Eric.»

Martin seemed disappointed, somehow. "Of course, Sub-Visser," he replied. Upon hearing his new title again, Orkath decided that he wasn't going to let my pesky human concerns spoil his moment.

Clasping Martin on the back, he said, "Soon, Fonrol, we'll control this planet. And then it's on to the Andalite home world. Won't that be something? All these Earth morphs, moving against the Andalites?"

They approached the bunker in the back of the Yeerk pool where the ships were docked, and boarded the Visser's Blade ship. There, in a special, sealed room, Hork-Bajir warriors held blades to my and Martins' throats while Orkath and Fonrol left us briefly, into the waiting, miniscule hands of the human-Controller from school, Sub-Visser Eighty-Two. Since his hosts' parents' were both killed National Guardsmen, the Sub-Visser had left school and was now in acting command of the Blade ship. I didn't know if his designation was still Eighty-Two, but I knew that he reported directly to Visser One, and that made his rank somewhat irrelevant.

I watched him hold my Yeerk in his hand. It had been a very long time since I'd really /seen/ Orkath, the way he really looked. Just a small little slug, small enough to be held comfortably in a little kid's hand. It was really amazing to think of just how powerless he had made me, for all this time.

The human-Controller laid my Yeerk and Martin's on top of the morphing cube, and we watched their bodies jolt at the sensation. Then he picked them up again, and turned towards us. "Hold out your hands, palm down," he ordered.

Martin and I both complied. Orkath was placed on top of my skin, and after a moment, I felt myself going a little loopy. Calm. Peaceful. It was a familiar feeling, like being wrapped in a big hug, or having my parents' arms around me. Then Sub-Visser Eighty-Two took our Yeerks off of our hands and placed them to our ears again.

When Orkath regained control of me, he reviewed my memories, as was his habit. «Yes,» he agreed, «I do seem very small. What is it that Yoda says? 'Size matters not'?»

I finished the quote. «'Judge me by my size, do you?'» I laughed in my head. «I should watch that movie again.»

«Your wish is my command,» Orkath announced jovially, and before I knew it, he was replaying my memory of the movie. It was like actually sitting in front of a TV and watching it again, just like all of the other memories he replayed for me. I could never recall the entire movie in perfect detail, but Orkath could, and there it was, in my head. Every single second of the movie.

«Wow,» I noted. «Like a VCR in my head.» It was even more special because my memory included my brother and my dad, who were both there the last time I watched it. It was a guys' night thing, my mom had gone off to some pottery class and we were taking advantage. Pillows all over the floor, popcorn fights, wearing t-shirts and boxer shorts and socks and drinking heavily carbonated sodas. It was the most special day in the world, because it was nothing special at all. I remembered my dad snatching me up, looking at me menacingly, saying "/I/ am your father," and then, of course, tickling the ever-loving crap out of me. My dad would have said that it was a day "filled with sparks."

And that made it just a little bit sad for me. Thinking about my dad, wishing I could still see him and talk to him. But it wasn't that kind of sadness that ruins the moment. It just made the memory bittersweet, and made me really appreciate the creature who could bring it up so much more vividly than my own recollection ever could.

By the time the "movie" ended, I was back in my house. In my room, alone. I was crying, too. Crying tears of joy for the memory of my dad, for all the good times we'd had that would always mean so much to me. Or was it Orkath who was crying? I couldn't really tell. Maybe, I supposed, it was both of us.


	13. Praying

The next two days were something of a blur. We staked out as many of Orkath's fellow Yeerks as we could. Primarily, it was Cylus and Jason that Orkath chose to partner himself up with, although occasionally we went with Martin and his Yeerk, whose name I finally found out was Ornet Three-Three-Two of the Sulp Niar pool. Usually Orkath would have his subordinate do the human morph while we flew the refuge Yeerk back to the pool, although occasionally we did it the other way around. When we did it, it was really a crazy experience, because, y'see, each morph comes with the basic instincts of the animal mind… and in this case, the animals were individual human beings.

For example, we morphed an overweight lady and, for the next two hours, neither Orkath nor I could get eating out of our minds. I'd heard about Taxxon hunger, and felt like I could finally identify with the feeling. Also, we morphed a girl from school who was going through her menstrual cycle, possibly making me the first human boy alive to ever really understand what it's like. Trust me – everything the girls say about how horrible it is is true. If anything, they're understating it.

Just as weird as the girl morphs were the adult ones. We did a computer tech for Lucent Technologies whose wife had insisted on a three day camping trip in the wild, to make sure none of the kids were Yeerk-infested. He was in his mid-thirties, and had a full beard, not to mention thick hair growing just about _everywhere_ else. Definitely out of shape, his body felt like a ton of lead whenever we tried to get it to do anything, but it wasn't just the body – the brain had a sort of inborn laziness that was infectious.

The desires were controllable, but we experienced almost every urge a human being can have. I knew now what it was like to be a boy attracted to girls, a woman attracted to men, an adult attracted to children. I knew what it was like to feel intense, irrational optimism, and then barely controlled despair. I even felt cravings for foods that I was normally repulsed by. It was amazing to me to discover how much of what appeals to a person was simply a matter of genetics.

By Monday night, I probably had about twelve different human morphs, each one representing one of the weirdest hours of my life, not to mention the cameo appearances we put in to school on Monday to attend the classes Orkath couldn't get out of, the ones that were still being taught by non-Controllers. And somewhere in all of that, Orkath actually managed to find times for us to sleep. How, I'm still not sure of.

Relations between Orkath and I continued to improve after the movie memory. As the shock of discovering Craig's location had started to wear off, I started to eagerly anticipate the moment when we would go with the detectives to see him on Tuesday. Orkath readily engaged me in conversation about the event, and promised that, as it was something of a "hospital occasion" similar to my dad's, that I would be allowed control of my body for the entire reunion. He also gave me control for Sunday morning services in church, and for the first time in quite a long time, I was able to perform my duties as an altar boy with the proper reverence.

«This religion of yours makes very little sense to me,» Orkath had complained, as I slipped on the traditional cassock and surplice uniform that I used for the mass.

«What's confusing?» I thought back to him.

Orkath was silent for a moment, but I knew that it was because he was struggling to put his thoughts into order for me. I waited patiently for him to elaborate, lighting the candles that my fellow altar boys and I would later carry forward in the procession.

Finally, he responded. «It's the inconsistencies,» he explained. «For instance, you make a sacrifice of bread and wine, which isn't really a sacrifice, since you end up eating it yourself.»

I shrugged, for no other reason than that I could. «It's symbolic. We believe that the bread and wine are transformed during the ceremony, and that what we eat is God's return gift to us.»

«But it still /tastes/ like bread,» Orkath insisted.

«You, of all people,» I noted, «should understand that things can seem one way and be another.»

I moved to the back of the church and, as years of tradition instructed, slowly bore my candle forward until we reached the altar. Then I took my seat at the right of the priest, and he began to speak. During the Gospel, I got up again, and held my candle to the right of the book while the priest read from it.

«See?» Orkath said. «This story is another one. Your deity makes claim to save you by sacrificing Himself, a pointless act because He knows he will be able to undo it.»

«It may seem pointless, Orkath,» I explained, «but the whole point of religion is to believe that, to our God, it all makes sense. Besides, I can sort of understand it. We all commit sins, and the sins are like a disease that starts to kill our souls. Like as if we don't have enough pure blood anymore, not enough to live forever in paradise. Enter Jesus, who, by dying, gives us His blood. Like a transfusion. So with His blood, we can live forever.»

Orkath sighed. «I guess I can understand the nobility of it. Dying to save your people. It's just strange to me, is all.»

«Do Yeerks have religion?» I wondered.

Orkath replied, «We have a Creation Myth, yes.»

At the time, I was too engrossed in serving mass to really ask more about it. But when Monday night came along, and we were walking towards the school so that Orkath could go down into the pool and feed, I brought it up again, and asked him to tell me the story.

«Many moons ago,» Orkath recited to me, «our world, as many others, was a dead rock, lifeless in space. It was the time of all-powerful beings, gods, you would call them. In the Yeerk language the word is _Desmidar_, which roughly means, 'Players.'»

Orkath took a moment to enjoy my sense of wonder and appreciation, emotions that he could sense through our mindlink, before continuing. «The Players were running a game, one with cosmic consequences. There were two of them, the Red-Eye and the Old Sage. Red-Eye represented the most base of desires, the raw needs and urges of society. Violence, yes, but also passion. Pleasure. Raw power. He is described as a single, large eye, on a throne miles high.» I tried to picture that image, but the sort of serious tone that Orkath gave to this Red-Eye was something I couldn't replicate in my own imagination. An image of an eye sitting on a throne was just way too funny for me, no matter what it's size.

Orkath waited for me to get over it. «The Old Sage,» he went on, «represented the more sophisticated side of society. Logic and reason, speculation, passivity. You could say that he was the mental to Red-Eye's physical. He's represented as an old, sagely humanoid with a beard… the old archives show a strange body that doesn't look anything at all like a Gedd, although there are some comparisons to Ssstram and humans.» Now the story was starting to be more than just words… images were popping into my head, images of the Yeerk home world, a sort of beautiful electric green, hovering in the sky around it's red sun.

«Red-Eye and the Old Sage looked down on our planet, and argued over how the Yeerk race should be created. Red-Eye wanted us to be warriors, a superior species that could rule over all the others. The Old Sage wanted us to be great thinkers, creatures who could concentrate on the powers of the mind and not the body. Orkath's mind conjured up the image of the two beings hovering over the world. Eventually they compromised, and agreed that the best method would be to make us parasites without bodies. Old Sage agreed because he had hoped to trick Red-Eye, believing that we would evolve to be the peacemakers of the galaxy, able to truly see into the minds and hearts of those we inhabited. Red-Eye agreed because he had hoped to trick Old Sage, believing that we would evolve to take our place as the overlords of the universe. And to this day we walk the line between these goals, joining ourselves with other species and, by doing so, bringing them the peace of unity and relaxation under our control. The light of the Kandrona, our red sun, is the ever-watchful Red-Eye, keeping his children warm. The Council of Thirteen is descended from the ministry of Old Sage, keeping our sights on unity and the hope that one day, there will be no more need of violence. Someday, though, we believe that the Prophets of the Players will enter our society and divide our race, forcing us to choose one goal or the other. Civil war will erupt, and the winners of the war will guide our race into the New Age.»

I was silent for a short time while I absorbed all that Orkath had taught me. «It's a fascinating story,» I admitted. «Thank you for telling me.»

Orkath shifted my eyes around. We were in front of the school now. «Ewell Five-Nine-Three will be here soon. Remember, Chris… don't tell Eric about how I've been treating you lately. Being a Sub-Visser now, I doubt anyone would believe him, but if he makes enough noise he might just get one of the higher-ups to notice how long it's been since I submitted to a memory dump. And we don't want that.»

«I promise,» I agreed to Orkath. A moment of silence. Then I said what I knew that he knew I was thinking, anyway. «This is it, isn't it? Three days from the governor's speech, and we've saved a lot of Yeerks, but nowhere near all of them. They're going to starve to death, and then your people will have to react by quarantining this town and infesting everyone. Soon as they do, the government will get wind of it and it's open war. Game, set, match.»

«Maybe not,» Orkath said, trying to sound hopeful. «We still don't have the full numbers on how many Yeerks are out there. Besides, even if we did have to take the town, the Lieutenant Governor is in charge, now, and he's one of us. He can order the National Guard to send in specific units, Controller units. We could still do it without the rest of the world knowing.»

«There are three interstate highways within the city limits,» I pointed out. «Don't you think people will notice when they drive by?»

Orkath was about to reply, but then Eric arrived. He was smiling that oh-so-beautiful smile, but it was just depressing to see, because I knew it was Ewell smiling. And I didn't know what the real Eric, the slave inside that body, was feeling.

«Orkath, I'm scared,» I admitted. «Maybe I shouldn't room up with him this time.»

«It'll be better if you do,» Orkath comforted. «Even if it's bad… not knowing is hurting you more.» Out loud, he said, "Do me a favor, Ewell… when we go onto the pier, tell them you're morph-capable involuntary."

Eric… Ewell seemed shocked. "Sub-Visser?" he questioned. "I'm not morph-capable, I…"

Orkath held up my hand. "I know you're not, but I've been under a lot of stress lately and, between you and me, I need to batter my host a little bit. It'll be easier going through the next few days if he's whining and moaning about time spent with your host in the cage."

Eric's face looked grim as he nodded. "Yes, Sub-Visser," he acknowledged, falling into step beside us as we headed for the Yeerk pool entrance. Orkath started to steal glances at him, maybe because he still felt my attraction to Eric, or maybe because he was trying to be nice to me. I remembered how he used to tease me – it felt like so long ago – by looking at Eric briefly and then looking away just when I started to feel that romance excitement. Now, he was taking good, long, hard looks, and I couldn't have been more depressed, the uncertainty of how Eric was adjusting to life as a Controller eating away at me. «Stop, please,» I murmured, and Orkath quietly obeyed, turning my eyes back towards the stairs and the sludgy pool below.

The stares hadn't gone unnoticed, though. "Something wrong, Sub-Visser?" Eric/Ewell asked, trying not to sound intimidated.

Orkath said the first thing that came to his mind. "Not you, Ewell. I was thinking about the group your host is in… Civil Air Patrol, was it?"

"Yes, Sub-Visser," Ewell agreed. "Their squadron was mobilized briefly on the morning after the National Guard attacks, turning spectators away from the battle scenes."

Orkath nodded my head. "Do we have any people in command-level positions?"

Ewell shrugged. "My own host himself commands a flight of cadets, mostly non-Controllers. I believe a couple of the adults, the 'Senior members,' are also our people."

Orkath rubbed my chin as we stepped onto the infestation pier. "We may be able to use that to our advantage," he said. Walking up to the Hork-Bajir guards, he declared, "Morph-capable involuntary. Ramonite box seven."

«Well,» Orkath said, «Time to eat. I'm starving. Good luck with Eric.»

Perhaps because I understood it to be a religious phrase, I felt the urge to wish my Yeerk well as he left my body. «May the light of the Kandrona shine on you, Orkath One-Seven-Two.»

As he slipped out, the Yeerk replied, «And may the Lord be with you, Christopher Windward.»

For the first time since I'd been paired up with Orkath, I missed him.


	14. Flanking

The Ramonite box sealed off in a solid sort of way, leaving me alone with Eric. From what I understand, it's called a Ramonite box because of a rather absurd mixture of human naming conventions and the sense of humor of a species called the Skrit Na. Apparently, the Skrit Na have been making visits to Earth for almost a hundred years, or they were until the Yeerks established a presence in orbit and started shooting down any Skrit Na ships that came near us. During one of their trips they discovered Top Ramen soup packets and decided that they could use the vacuum-seal technology that we use to preserve them to create a synthetic cocoon for Skrit who were having trouble evolving into Na on their own. Since Skrit Na can't make an "eh" sound with their throats, "Rah-Men" became "Ram-On" instead, and the special metal they created was called Ramonite. When the Yeerks raided one of the Skrit Na vessels, early in the invasion, they discovered and stole the Skrit Na technology.

It was terrifying to think that I was in some big alien vacu-seal packet, of course. I sometimes wondered if air somehow permeated the metal, or if, left in here too long, we would eventually run out of air and die. But it was the furthest thought from my mind this time, as I watched Eric meander over to a corner of the box and take a sullen seat. For a full thirty seconds, neither of us spoke, and I found myself wishing for a little of Orkath's confidence.

"Are you okay?" I finally asked, trying to sound merely concerned instead of desperately worried for him.

"Yeah," he told me casually. "You?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "I guess I'm used to it, really."

Silence. Probably only a minute, but it seemed like an eternity. It was strange – I had been waiting to be alone with him, to be truly /myself/ and alone with him, for so long. I thought I'd have a million things to say, but now that the moment had come, I couldn't think of a single one.

"Is… is he treating you okay?" I asked solemnly.

Eric looked away and shook his head no, and I felt a stab of pain at his discomfort. It took him a moment to look back towards me. "I'm sorry I kissed you," he said.

I felt like burrowing into the other wall and dying. "I didn't mean for him to get you," I told him. "I tried to fight him…" But had I? No, not really. I protested, sure, but I never even once fought for control to keep myself away from him, because I'd been selfish, I'd wanted to see him.

"That's not what I meant," Eric assured me, "I meant… well, I'm sure you didn't /really/ want to do that. I'm sure your Yeerk made you."

I turned away, not wanting to make eye contact. "No," I whispered sullenly.

"He gave you control, then?" Eric asked incredulously.

He had, but I couldn't admit that to Eric… not without his Yeerk finding out. "Well, yes, then, he did make me, but he was playing my role. It was my…" Desire seemed like too strong a word, although it was certainly the right one. "My feelings."

"Oh," Eric said awkwardly, and for awhile neither of us said anything more.

Again just to make conversation, I asked, "Did your parents notice anything?"

"No," Eric said sullenly. "They never even knew we'd left the house that night, and my Yeerk has done a perfect imitation of me."

"What about the governor's speech?" I asked.

I could hear Eric's shirt rustling as he shook his head. "They don't believe it."

I sighed. "Mine, neither," I told him, and I described the incident with my brother tickling me, although I left out the part about my Yeerk enjoying the experience. Eric had a soft, sad smile on his face as I relayed the tale.

"What's it like being a Sub-Visser?" Eric asked suddenly.

I shrugged. "Orkath hasn't been one for all that long, so I don't really know yet. I know he's going to get to go to special meetings with Visser One."

"Visser One?" Eric repeated, the name apparently unfamiliar to him.

I nodded. "He's the guy in charge of the invasion. His host body is an Andalite – sort of like a blue centaur with a scorpion tail."

Eric's right brow went up at the description. "Sounds scary," he admitted.

"He is," I agreed. "The regular Andalites are still fighting the Yeerks, though."

Eric nodded. "Yeah, I know that much. Them and some human kids, right?"

I nodded, and explained to him about the Animorphs, starting with the stuff I knew about from before they went into hiding and finishing with the attack on me at the school. I noticed that Eric looked really concerned when I mentioned the danger to myself, and I felt my spirits lift a bit.

He shook his head. "So hard to believe that all of this was going on for two years and I didn't get wind of it." He looked away a bit. "So, will I see a lot of you? I mean, will our Yeerks work together much?"

I shook my head no. "You're under Orkath's command, but mostly he spends time with the morph-capable unit. You'll probably only see me when he gives orders to your direct supervisor." There was another short period of silence, and then Eric slipped over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

I guess I looked surprised, but I smiled anyway. "What was that for?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Just a happy memory for you to hold onto for a few days."

With a mischievous grin, I pointed out, "I can think of more enjoyable ways to create memories." But before I could put any of my lewd thoughts into action, the Hork-Bajir guards decided to break up the party. Eric and I managed one more quick kiss before we were pulled apart and led to the infestation pier.

I bent my ear to the sludge without resistance, and waited for Orkath to touch my brain. It took a little bit longer than usual, but eventually I felt the familiar sensation of Orkath's mind merging with my own, and I realized that something was wrong. He felt scared, alarmed about something.

«You okay?» I asked him curiously.

«Umm, yeah, I'm fine,» he said, but I was pretty sure that he was lying. Still, even though our relationship had become more friendly in recent days, he remained able to keep secrets from me if he wanted to, and I decided not to press. I expected him to take us back towards the topside and home, but he lingered by the infestation pier, waiting and watching as first Eric, then a Hork-Bajir, then a couple of more humans and finally, Tom, was reinfested.

It was Tom that he went to first, as soon as Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine was settled into his body. I could sense that, whatever was bothering Orkath, Tom's Yeerk was most likely a part of it. I knew from past experience that Yeerks could communicate in their natural state, using a language of ultrasonic squeaks, so I further deduced that Exas and Orkath must have had a conversation. There was only one thing I could think of that Exas could say that might scare Orkath.

«No, no,» Orkath told me, sensing my thoughts as I had them, «he doesn't know I'm treating you cordially. It was… something else. I really don't want to talk about it right now.» Out loud, Orkath said, "Do we go up now?"

"No," Tom said sullenly, and I had time to wonder where the real Tom had been locked up, if he wasn't in the cage with me. "We should wait for a couple of the others, they should be done feeding in a few minutes."

One thing I was pretty sure of, seeing who they waited for, was that they were all sub-vissers in rank. I recognized Sub-Visser Seventy-Three, whom I had once been locked up with and gotten Orkath in trouble for talking to, and, of course, Sub-Visser Eighty-Two, the kid who wasn't even old or tall enough for most amusement park rides, but who answered directly to Visser One. There were a few I didn't know, but they all carried themselves with that swaggering, superior Yeerkish air I'd come to expect from Tom's Yeerk. Once the group was about twelve strong, they started back towards the ship docking area. I noticed that there had been a change in the last few days – there were suddenly a lot of Taxxons and Taxxon-Controllers in this area of the Yeerk Pool, eating away through the granite along some of the outer walls. Apparently forming tunnels of some kind.

«What do you think that's about?» I wondered. «Some new plumbing?»

«No,» Orkath contradicted, «the tunnels are too big for plumbing. They look a lot like old Taxxon hive tunnels on their homeworld, but I was sure the Taxxons had already made themselves a nest elsewhere.» He turned my head towards Sub-Visser Ninety-Seven, the only Taxxon-Controller in the group. «He doesn't seem surprised by their presence. Once he's strapped to a translator, I'll ask.» Untranslated Taxxon speech is all guttural and hissing, and only Yeerks who had formerly been Taxxon-Controllers had even the most basic understanding of it. Of course, Yeerks who /were/ Taxxon-Controllers usually remained so, or remained hostless afterwards for long periods of rehabilitation, because the Taxxon's hunger instincts were more powerful than any Yeerk could ever master.

We passed the Taxxon laborers and entered a long, circular conference room. Already several sub-vissers were present, as well as the only Andalite-Controller in the military hierarchy, Visser One. His front hoof was in a glass of herbal tea as he waited for us all to be seated.

«Report,» he demanded tersely. Every Sub-Visser around the table returned with the number of Yeerks that were still unaccounted for from the previous three day cycle. It was then that I realized we'd overlooked something huge – some Yeerks were already one or two days out of the pool on the day of the governor's speech. Which meant that for the last two days, there were already free human beings running around town. Or perhaps left it.

«No way I'm mentioning that to the visser,» Orkath complained, as he reported the number of missing under his control. The grand total was a little over three hundred Yeerks, all definitely deceased. And yet Visser One's stalk eyes seemed to glint in some strange way, a way I'd identify as a smile if it was a human mouth.

«I don't get it,» I complained. «Why's he happy?»

Orkath was radiating depression. «Don't you get it? This is just the sort of thing he's been waiting for. A 'flimsy excuse' to start doing things more openly.»

Sure enough, the Visser's stalk eyes scanned the room and he said, «We cannot allow any of the former Controllers to leave this city. How many hosts did we obtain in the National Guard?»

Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine stood as he responded. "Eight hundred, Visser. And we control just as many in the regular human military, and the juvenile military auxiliaries."

Visser One nodded his Andalite head, a gesture he'd picked up from being around so many human-Controllers all the time. «Excellent. More than enough to seal off this city. Form a perimeter. Any vehicles entering the city will be escorted towards one of the city train stations. Within the next three hours, the southern tracks should be connected directly to the Yeerk Pool, and I'm told the others will be online by tomorrow.»

Sub-Visser Eighty-Two responded, as overseeing the troop movements on Earth would be his responsibility. "Yes, Visser. I presume we should do the same to any vehicle attempting to leave the city?"

«You assume correctly,» the visser agreed. Swiveling a stalk eye our way, he said, «Sub-Vissers Fifty-One and Eighty-Three, you command morph-capable units in addition to regular battalions, yes?»

"Yes, Visser," I heard my mouth reply, as a Hork-Bajir voice to my right said the same.

«I wish you to have your squadrons fly patrols over the city continually,» the visser ordered, «with ground support from Controllers who cannot morph. If any animal comes near the city that is not one of you in morph, order the ground troops to Dracon it.»

"Yes, Visser," we repeated. «So much for seeing Craig,» I added to Orkath disdainfully.

"_Visser,"_ a synthesized voice cried out, from the box connected to the Taxxon-Controller, Sub-Visser Ninety-Seven.

The visser's main eyes turned to face the Taxxon, while his stalk eyes stayed fixed on the door. «Yes, what is it?» he mused, already annoyed at being spoken to out of turn.

"_Visser,"_ the voice repeated, _"I again formally repeat my squadron's request to be made morph-capable and assist in the search for the rebels."_

«Sub-Visser,» the Andalite-Controller replied, surprisingly maintaining his composure, «you are well aware that we need those train tunnels laid out as soon as possible. Your squadron cannot be spared from that task.»

The Taxxon-Controller didn't seem to buy it. _"Then why not have some of our pool brothers acquire Taxxon morphs and assist? Then the job would be done faster, and we could all patrol the skies for the Animorphs."_

«Revolting,» Orkath spat at me privately. «No way /I'm/ going to morph one of those creatures.» I'd never seen a Taxxon do anything but eat raw meat, but I couldn't help but agree with my Yeerk on that one.

«There are already far too many morph-capable Yeerks,» Visser One stated flatly. «I wish the power dispersed sparingly, at least until the so-called Peace Movement members are all caught.»

The Taxxon didn't object any further, but we could see that he was still angry as he slumped into his relaxation posture. The rest of the meeting was all about different contingency plans, but Orkath kept glancing back at that Taxxon. Something was happening, something more than just the Yeerks being on edge, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. One thing was for certain, though.

Orkath and Tom had been discussing it.


	15. Maturing

_Author's Note: I'm sure you've noticed, but my posting schedule is very erratic. Sometimes I post a chapter a week, sometimes several months go by while my regular life starts kicking and pushing at me… but there are always two things that bring me back: The love of the story, and the wonderful encouragements you guys write in your reviews. Thanks._

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It was the following morning before Orkath finally told me what he and Exas had discussed in the Yeerk Pool.

«He wants me to join a rebellion,» he said, taking the time to check my cheek for tiny little peach fuzz hairs as he wiped the mirror clean of all the water vapor that had formed during our shower. There weren't any hairs yet, but a lot of kids my age were starting to get them, so I figured that it wouldn't be long, but apparently my Yeerk was concerned that the morphing technology was stunting my growth. Andalites usually don't get the morphing power until after their version of puberty, he had explained, and the Animorphs seemed so physically underdeveloped for their age on the few occasions that the Yeerks had actually seen them in their true, human bodies. His theory was that the time spent in morph was time in which the true body didn't age, and that in the event of a long, drawn out war, the Animorphs and morph-capable Yeerks would eventually be identified by their lack of secondary sex characteristics.

Of course, my progression towards adulthood was the furthest thing from my mind when he made his announcement. «You mean he's part of the Yeerk peace movement?» I asked giddily.

«No,» Orkath replied disdainfully, shaking my head on impulse. It was weird, since we were looking in the mirror at the time it was like "seeing" him, in my body, as he talked to me. «He says he feels that, now that we can take on any body we want, we no longer need the weak, frail human bodies just because they've got the greatest numbers. He wants to steal the morphing cube and go out "shopping" for the best bodies, see what other worlds have to offer.»

I frowned. Literally, I made my own mouth frown. Orkath was still in control of me, but more often than not, now, he was allowing a lot of my mental commands to make it past him and to my body, especially when we were in private. In a lot of ways, he was sharing control. «I don't get it… if he just waits awhile, Earth will probably be conquered and then he'll get to go on his shopping spree legitimately. Why steal it?»

«Two reasons,» Orkath said, raising my arm to check my armpits for signs of hair as well. «The one he didn't tell me is the more obvious one, there's no way that cube is going to stick around long. The Council of Thirteen is already itching to have a technical team dismantle the cube and see if they can replicate it.»

«What reason /did/ he tell you?» I wondered.

Orkath was quiet a moment. Then, he said, «He intercepted a Z-Space transmission from the Animorphs' camp the other day. The Andalite fleet is coming.»

I thought I should have felt relieved to hear that. Earth's liberators were on their way! But something about the way Orkath said it told me he was leaving a lot of the details out, and even if he wasn't, I just couldn't be happy with the thought of the battle they'd bring. Or the knowledge that the Yeerks would likely work double-time to secure the planet before the Andalites came.

«No,» Orkath muttered, hearing my thoughts. «We /won't/ be accelerating our efforts any more than Visser One already planned to. Because the Sub-Visser didn't inform Visser One about the Andalites yet.»

Now it was my turn to be quiet a moment, absorbing the shock of that. That, more than anything else, made it very clear that Tom's Yeerk was on the level. He intended to rebel. «Are you going to tell the Visser?» I asked Orkath curiously.

«I don't know,» Orkath admitted. «Exas made it clear what he'd have his supporters do to me if I /did/ tell, but… to not report something like that… it goes against everything I've ever known as a soldier.»

«So does being friends with me,» I pointed out, but I decided to drop the topic at that point. In the long run, it was a decision that Orkath had to make for himself, and although I had a preference, of course, I didn't want to influence him into something he'd regret later.

After he got finished checking me for hairs (I'm /not/ telling whether or not he found any) we dressed, brushed our hair, headed downstairs for breakfast (where my brother still jokingly called me 'Yeerk' every other sentence until Orkath pelted him with a piece of toast) and then trotted off to school.

Attendance was pretty bad, of course. Some of the Controller kids whose Yeerks we managed to save were now back, since they'd passed their "three day exam." Many other Yeerks died in the previous three day stint, though, and now their host bodies were beginning to spread the word about the reality of the invasion. On top of that, all of the ROTC and CAP cadets weren't in school because they were out on the city perimeter, blocking all entryways in and out of the city. The state's Lieutenant Governor, a human-Controller, helped dissuade any kind of outside reaction to the city's closing.

I was flipping through the border report in math class when the vice principal called the boys in my class out for physicals. As the rest of the boys headed into the nurse's office, he took me aside and brought me into his own.

"They're not ordinary physicals," Chapman explained. "We received another shipment of Yeerks from the Pool ship with orders to infest every male in the school and issue a Dracon beam weapon."

My Yeerk gave the impression of nodding approvingly, although I could tell he was bothered by the tactical change. Privately, he muttered to me, «Well, I guess this is where we'd have gotten Eric anyway.»

I was more scared than that. «What about my mother, my brother?»

Orkath asked, as conversationally as possible, "Do we have similar arrangements taking place in the high school and adult occupational facilities?"

The vice principal shrugged. "Not many, sir." Strange, to hear your vice principal call you 'sir'. "It's harder in most adult facilities, there's less organized structure. But we do have two factories who're giving their employees performance reviews as a cover. Those factories can be turned to the production of human weapons technology as early as tomorrow. We have nothing in the high school yet, the Visser wanted to wait for the next batch of Yeerks, he said our school was a better choice for now because we have an almost entirely Controller staff." He pointed at the report I was holding. "Rebel team made an incursion into the city today. Three of them, in bird-of-prey morphs. They almost disrupted one of our active train lines, but we drove them off."

Again, Orkath nodded. "Was anyone able to follow them back to their camp?"

Chapman shook his head, grimacing. "A team in falcon morph engaged them, but they were only made morph-capable this morning and they were near the end of their shift when they engaged the rebels. If they'd pursued, they'd have become nothlits."

Orkath looked back over my shoulder, at the wall that separated Chapman's office from the nurse's. Somewhere on the other side, the remaining members of the boys' baseball team were being reduced to live shells for their new Yeerk masters. The team was definitely not going to the playoffs. "I presume," he asked the vice principal, "you didn't call me away from watching the infestations just to tell me about some rebel scout team?"

"No, sir," Chapman agreed. "Two detectives crossed into the city looking for you today."

At first, Orkath didn't make the connection, but I reminded him. "Yes, they're supposed to take me to a medical facility to identify a missing friend of my host's."

Chapman nodded. "So their Yeerks said, after we took them. They wanted to know whether you still wanted to go, just to keep up appearances."

"Well," my Yeerk began, in a tone that made it clear he was about to say no.

«Oh, please,» I said to Orkath, «I haven't seen him in years! You know how important this is to me.»

«Yes, yes, I know,» Orkath conceded. Out loud, he said, "I suppose it /could/ be a good idea… it might calm down the media if they see requests to leave the city are being honored from time to time. Yes, I'll go."

"I'll inform them," Chapman said, picking up the phone. Since there was nothing further, Orkath stood and we left.

The rest of the school day was hard to endure. Newbie Yeerks are an awful lot like Andalites in a new morph, they get overwhelmed by all the new sensations that they've never experienced. The line for the cafeteria food at lunch was at an unusual high, to the point where a lunch lady volunteer, one of the few non-Controllers left, commented that every day should be Chili Con Carne day from that day forward. Of course, the chili caused a lot of flatulence, and all the new Yeerks enjoyed messing around with their ability to fart. The uninfested girls didn't see this as any significant difference from the boys' previous behavior.

When school ended, we headed out to the detectives' car and, right on schedule, they were waiting for us. Strangely, though, Martin was also there. "You should take me along," he suggested. "It'll look better if you have a supportive friend with you, and it's better for my cover with my family."

"You won't need a cover much longer," Orkath protested, but we waved him into the back seat of the car anyway. He made some small talk with the detectives, but Orkath's mind wandered more towards me.

«Y'know, I've been thinking,» Orkath said. «I can ask around a bit… see if I can find nicer Yeerks for your family.»

«I don't want /nicer/ Yeerks for my family,» I whined at Orkath. «I want them to stay uninfested.»

«You hate my kind that much?» Orkath asked. «I suppose you hate me,» he added, even though he knew, better than anyone could, that I didn't.

«No,» I insisted, «you're different. You're… we have an understanding now. But in a way, it's still a forced understanding, because I /have/ to have you in my head. I don't want my family to go through that, if they choose a Yeerk partner someday, fine, but they shouldn't be /forced/.»

«I know of no other way to help them,» Orkath admitted. «They wouldn't leave the city without you and there's no way they can stay there and not be taken.»

For some reason, the way Orkath worded that statement made an idea pop into my head. An idea I could feel Orkath getting excited about, as he perceived my thoughts. «Hey,» I asked jokingly, «are you thinking what I'm thinking?»

«It could work,» Orkath responded. «There /are/ so many new Yeerks now, no one would question the fake names… but you would have to be willing to acquire me, morph me, and infest one of them long enough to go down to the pool and put in a feeding appearance.» His thought-speak took on a firm edge. «And you would have to willingly let me back in as well.»

«Of course I'd let you back in,» I pointed out. «Without you, the plan doesn't work and all /three/ of us get reinfested, probably with crueler Yeerks.»

«But will your mother and brother understand that,» Orkath asked, «once all three of you are human and I'm nothing but a slug on the ground? After seeing what… what the pool is like?»

«I can make them understand,» I said confidently, thrilled at the opportunity to do something positive for them. To finally know that, in a small way, they were safe.

While we were talking, the car made it to the hospital and the four of us entered. Martin excused himself to go to the bathroom – apparently he had to go bad, because he took it at a run – while the rest of us proceeded to the fifth floor, where Craig was being kept.

«It will be… hard for me,» Orkath said gently. «Yeerks go through a puberty, similar to humans. Puberty for us means maturing to the point where we're ready to take a host body.»

«You're not hosted when you're kids?» I wondered.

«Some of us are,» Orkath declared, «but prepubescent Yeerks never stay hosted long because their need for Kandrona rays is higher than an adult's. They'd need the pool every day, not every three days. But during puberty, Kandrona rays become… irksome. It's almost like humans tend to lose their metabolism at the end of your puberty, so that you eat the same foods as before but suddenly gain a lot more weight. Continual doses of Kandrona start to make the Yeerk very sick.»

Suddenly I saw where this lesson in Yeerk biology was taking us. «Can you be in the pool and not take in the rays?» I asked, suddenly concerned.

«Yes,» Orkath said. «In fact, only during puberty are Yeerks unable to close the pores that absorb Kandrona. It's nature's way of making us leave the pool in adolescence… the only solace from Kandrona during that period is a host body. But my fellow Yeerks will be expecting me to feed, and I could blow my cover if I don't. It's how the rebel Aftran was caught. So I'll have to feed twice every three days.»

«Are you sure you're willing to do it?» I wondered.

«I will,» Orkath agreed, «if I have your word that you won't go against my wishes when dealing with other Yeerks, or tell any humans about my people without my consent. It will be harder to fight you for control, so I must rely on your word.»

"We're here to see Craig Tozier," the detective said to a nurse, snapping us out of our intense discussion.

"In the back room," she told the detective. "But you might want to bring nose plugs, he smells awful. Ordinarily I'm supposed to escort you, but /I'm/ not going near him."

"Is it a medical condition?" one detective-Yeerk wondered, but the other started down that hall and we headed after him, my eagerness to see Craig again getting to Orkath.

It was Craig, alright. Same dark black hair, same goofy looking nose. He'd grown a lot, way more than I had. He was even sporting a small moustache on his upper lip. He looked tired, but nowhere near as bad as they'd described.

"Chris?" he asked, staring at me. "You're Chris, right? I remember you!" He moved up to give me a hug, but then the pain in his side must have gotten to him because he leaned back down.

«No, not pain,» Orkath said, peering at my friend curiously as he approached and clasped hands with him. «His face isn't wincing.»

«You're right,» I conceded. «And that smell… isn't it…» That's when it hit me. «Skunk! He smells like /skunk/!»

Orkath's shock radiated so profoundly in my head that I'm sure it must have shown on our face. «But… that would mean…»

«Yeah,» I agreed. «He's the Animorph with the bear morph!»


	16. Visiting

_Author's Note: Yes, technically, this should be a chapter from Orkath's POV. I have, however, decided that the storyline is more important than a silly pattern, and left this chapter from Chris' POV. Next chapter will be from Orkath's._

I don't know how long we stared. I was sure that it was too long. After all, if Craig was the bear from the battle with the National Guard, then he would have had plenty of opportunity to see us in my natural, human body. He had to know that I was a Controller.

But then I remembered our shared encounter with the bear during my boy scout days, and that I'd had to throw the rock to get the bear's focus on me. One of the hundred people who'd visited me in the hospital had explained that the bear's eyesight was probably too bad to see me on his own, and Craig was giving off the stronger smell, being as afraid as he was.

So Craig had no idea I was there. He didn't know what I was.

"Geez, man, you smell like a rhinoceros took a dump on you," my mouth stated coyly, breaking the stunned silence.

«Oh, c'mon,» I complained, «you're /not/ going to use my friendship with him like this, are you?»

«What do you want me to do?» Orkath asked, sounding panicked. «Just say, 'Oh hey, you're that Animorph who tried to kill me, how interesting?' I need to think this out.»

Craig snorted. "Skunk, actually," he said. Did he sound suspicious? I couldn't tell. "It crawled right up in the center window, damnedest thing."

"Yeah," my Yeerk agreed, trying desperately to sound like he was convinced. But he was having a hard time concealing the anger that I knew he was feeling.

«You're not going to… turn him in, are you?» I asked meekly.

«Are you kidding?» Orkath replied. «This is one of them! One of the soldiers who's been annihilating my people!»

«He's also one of my oldest and best friends,» I pointed out firmly. «I risked my life to save him.»

Orkath didn't reply to me, concentrating on what Craig was saying to him. Unwilling to risk being off guard if the Animorph attacked. I couldn't help but be transfixed, too.

"We were… in scouts," Craig was saying, eyes aglow with the resurfacing memories. "We wandered off from the pack… and there was a bear. In a cave."

"Yes," Orkath agreed, easily recognizing the description of the memory that he had replayed, time and time again, inside my head. Again, I wondered at why Orkath found the memory so intriguing, but the Yeerk wasn't likely to answer anytime soon.

«Of course,» he murmured, thinking out loud to me. «I should have seen it after I heard the blind girl was given the morphing power. These Animorphs must have chosen /all/ damaged humans for recruits, because they know we won't infest them.» I felt my own eyes peering quizzically at the spot where Craig was supposed to be injured. «But morphing fixes injury… probably even old injuries. This human is no longer damaged – he's faking it, to stay here.»

"We ran away… the bear was gaining…" A slow, appreciative smile appeared across Craig's face, as if he were seeing me for the first time. "And then you told me to run, and you picked up a rock. You saved me."

"Yeah," my Yeerk stated, and although we were sort-of friends now, I still felt a little resentful about how deceptive he could be. He made my voice sound modest, matter-of-fact. "It was no big deal… dumbest thing I ever did."

«Outside of joining the Sharing,» I pointed out. But still, Orkath could not be lulled into conversation.

"Well, it saved my life," he pointed out. "After… I ran… It started raining, so I took off my uniform and used it with some twigs to make a sort of shield for myself." He sighed. "Then I just cried for awhile… I mean, I just knew you were dead and I felt like I'd killed you. I'd probably have looked pathetic to anyone who saw me… a kid in his underwear, hiding from the rain, bawling his eyes out."

«Heh… we know a little something about looking pathetic and running around in underwear, don't we,» I joked.

"Anyway," Craig continued, "the next day I decided to get my bearings… I left my little shield set up for a base and then marked a trail as I went so I could get back to it, or so the searchers could follow it if they found the camp while looking for me."

«You always were a good scout,» I noted, and Orkath, deciding it was a good way to breed trust with his enemy, repeated the sentiment aloud.

Craig blushed a little. "Thanks…" He sighed. "I went up to the top of a nearby cliff, and that… that's when I saw it."

"Saw what?" Orkath asked curiously.

"You wouldn't believe me," Craig stated flatly, turning away. Looking more than a little upset.

"Yes I will," the Yeerk insisted. "You can tell me."

Craig gave us a once over, seemed to shrug, and nodded. "I saw a spaceship… it was really big, and it had these big, long scoops that were sucking up fish and water."

«He saw a Yeerk supply vessel,» Orkath commented to me, seemingly enjoying the irony of it. «It was in the mountains near your campsite on the day it was destroyed by the rebels. Of course, at the time, we assumed them to be Andalites, so for months afterward we took the risk of heading into the most dangerous area of the planet for our resources, to shield us from detection. How foolish we were. All those ships…»

«Our planet has dangerous areas to you?» I asked curiously.

«You call it the Bermuda Triangle,» Orkath replied. «In reality it's a temporal divergence, called a Sario Rip. One misnavigation can hurtle a ship over vast distances of time and space. The two convoys we lost in it could very well have wound up in Earth's stone age, or it's future, or some other world… anywhere, really. Wherever they went, they clearly didn't find a way to leave us any indication.»

«Heh… well, they'll have plenty of company,» I commiserated. «Humans have lost quite a few sailing ships and and planes to the Triangle.»

"I knew you wouldn't believe me," Craig pouted, misinterpreting our silence. Or was he testing us?

"No, I be.." Orkath started to say, but then he caught my thought and decided that it might, indeed, be a test. "I mean, I believe that it /could/ have happened… I admit, it's hard to really know for sure. Could be you're mixing your memory up with something you saw on TV."

Craig seemed to think about that for a moment, and I guess he liked the explanation, because he went on. "Well, I only saw it from a distance… but whatever I saw, it exploded and that scared me so bad I backed right over the cliff… next thing I knew I was here, I couldn't remember anything, and the doctor said I'd been here for five weeks."

"They never identified you?" Orkath asked.

Craig shook his head. "I wasn't wearing my scout uniform, so they didn't know I was from scouts. I don't know why they didn't link me up with missing persons, though."

«I can guess why,» Orkath admitted. «My people likely noted the vicinity he was last seen in and deleted him from the database. Last thing we wanted was more attention to that area while we were dealing with the wreckage.»

«And because of that, he stayed here and became an Animorph,» I commented. «Ironic, everything you do just seems to get you in more trouble here.»

Orkath moved me in again, to hug Craig. For a moment I was worried he might try to choke his adversary. "It's good to see you again."

"You, too," Craig agreed, almost teary.

"I'll be right back," Orkath assured him. "I just need to go get a drink." Halfway between the bed and the room door, he turned. "Want anything?"

Craig shrugged, grinning back at us. "Nah. Hard to eat when you smell like this."

Orkath chuckled, and then he stepped out of the room, but we didn't go any further than the door, staring almost transfixed at the open walkway as Orkath declared to me, «I have to turn him in, Chris.»

«No you don't!» I insisted. «Orkath, you've come so far, I know you know that we can coexist! But we can't do it if Visser One wins!»

«It's not that simple,» Orkath grumbled. «I'm a soldier, don't you understand? It's not about what I agree with. Your military didn't want to drop atomic bombs, but they did what their commander ordered them. I'm bound to do the same.» He sighed with my voice. «I'm not you, Chris. I can't just pretend I don't know things or feel things. I thought I could, but I can't.»

«So what do you do about your bond with me?» I asked. «Going to tell the Yeerks about that?»

«After…» Orkath struggled, knowing how lame he sounded to me. «After your race is subjugated, perhaps then I can convince my people to free some of you. There are so many, after all.»

«I see,» I mused angrily. «You can delay it… when it works for you.»

He didn't get a chance to respond, because just then, all hell broke loose. See, we'd forgotten that other Controllers had come with us. And that many heard stories about the details of the battle.

"Despat," the detective moaned, coming near the door. "It smells like skunk in there. Didn't one of the Animorphs get hit with a skunk smell?"

Orkath stared dumbfounded at the Controller, the choice hanging in the air. One word and he would seal Craig's fate, but he hesitated – for a fleeting second, that word didn't come.

And then that word had no opportunity to come, as a bat swung from behind the detective, smashing him in the head and knocking him to the floor. And holding the bat was…

ME.

"Don't try to understand," my voice said back at us. "Just sleep." And then, suddenly, the world went black.


	17. Orkath the Second

«Chris?» I called out. Stupid. I already knew by means far more intimate than linguistic communication that my host's conscious brain had ceased to function. It was a very surreal state of mind. I was still connected to the brain, I could still feel the autonomic and subconscious impulses working normally, and yet I could not get the brain to respond to commands to open Chris' eyes, or stand. It was as if another Yeerk had somehow crawled into our head, and connected to me the way that I connected to Chris. It was the closest I could ever come to feeling the way a host must feel all the time, sending out signals which are somehow imperceptibly filtered out.

I considered my options. Leaving my host was too risky - it was obvious that whoever had knocked us unconscious did not intend Chris any permanent damage, mostly because I would have been dead before even having time to think about rousing him. But I had no idea whether such lack of malice extended to me, as well. Of course, I was a lot less helpless than a typical Yeerk - my own, natural body had the power to morph. But morphing would kill Chris, or at least certainly cause him irreversible brain damage, and I, too, was unwilling to risk his safety. No, I was left only with the option of sitting in Chris' head and waiting for him to wake up. An option I found entirely too disconcerting.

For one, it left me pondering the unanswered questions: Who had done this to us? Obviously it was someone morph-capable, who had acquired Chris' DNA. But Chris had no memory of such an event occurring. How had they done it without his knowledge? While he was sleeping, perhaps? Was Chance an Animorph, like Tom's brother Jake had been? No matter how much I speculated, I wouldn't know for sure until Chris woke up.

Once that line of thought was exhausted, my mind was left with no recourse but to tumble into the past and reflect. Reflect on the life I had lived, and the things I had done. I remembered my first host, a member of the Ssstram species. Open war had already broken out on the Ssstram home world by the time a host was found for me. I never really got to enjoy the pleasures of each new sensation, or adjusting to the abilities of my new body.

I remembered that first day with my host. I had squirmed my way into his ear as instinct demanded. It was just like old Corin Two-One-Seven had said it would be. I could sense the electricity running around ahead of me, in the cavern that was my host's brain, and I felt eagerness to be a part of it, to feel the "charge" (no pun intended) of having those electrical impulses coursing through my own body. As I started wresting control from my host, the first thing I became aware of was the physical shape of the new body that I was inhabiting. A triumverate of long, bony arms jutted out of the top of a huge central mass, more similar to Yeerk physiology than to human or Andalite. There was no "heart" to speak of. Nutrients were absorbed porously in the Sstramian atmosphere in such a way that every system of the body obtained sustenance without the need for a bloodstream to carry them from one part of the body to another. This was a key liability in our purposes for the Ssstram since, unlike the nutrients provided by the rays of our home sun, the Ssstram had no way to synthesize their live-giving atmosphere in an artificial environment. To this day, we have been unable to find a way to get a Ssstram-Controller to survive off of their home world.

While the Ssstram body was certainly impressive - and over seventy times my size! - it was the Ssstram mind that impressed us the most. Up until then, we had only managed to take the Gedds and the Naharans and the Mak. All pre-industrial, limited worlds with primitive species. But the Ssstram were technologically sophisticated, in most areas just as advanced as we Yeerks were. Early on in the infiltration portion of our campaign, a single Ssstram-Controller was prevented from returning to the Yeerk Pool in time, and the Yeerk in his head died. Immediately, he went straight the their Ministry of Science, where a complete memory dump was obtained. That was how the Ssstram became aware of our presence, and they fought us nobly and fiercely at every turn. Of course, when our campaign finally came to an end, their memory dump technology became our own, and only Vissers and Sub-Vissers have been exempt from the practice of periodically using it.

On the day when I first infested my host, the end of our campaign was the furthest thing from my mind. My host's name was Ayrac of Rouu. With the first contact upon his mind I knew all sorts of things about him - that he was a male of his species. That he had mated and had three children. That he was required to execute one of the children for occupational defection, a practice whereby a Ssstramian adolescent rejects the job chosen for him by his society and instead secretly trades with another adolescent, leading to less efficient accomplishment of the task solely for the happiness of the worker. That he had gone against his society's mandate and smuggled his child into exile rather than see the boy executed. I could see anything about him that I wished, and yet I felt the urge to engage /him/, the sum of all these experiences and feelings and thoughts. The former master of the body which I inhabited.

«Hello there,» I greeted, seeking him out with my mind. «My name's Orkath. It's a pleasure to meet you.»

Then I felt it bubble up, slamming against me so hard that for a moment, I physically spasmed. I felt my host's hatred for me. I felt his resentment. He imagined me being slowly boiled in a vat of reddish liquid. He imagined his people rising up against us, defeating us, keeping some of us alive and in pools so that they could hold celebrations once a year, crushing and stomping us on the ground to remember the day of their liberation. He vowed to fight me for control of one arm, just one arm, so that he could smash the large bone on the end of it back into our midsection and slice me open. He didn't even talk to me directly. He didn't even acknowledge me as a sentient being. As I moved his arms and legs, as I took up a Dracon beam and fought his people, he simply replayed his fantasies for me, over and over and over again.

It was with my host screaming in my head that I moved forward, feeling hurt and alone. My squad killed and captured many Ssstram in an attempt to seize the Ssstram's ultimate weapon, their deadly Chroniton Bomb. It was said that in the last war that the Ssstram waged on one another, they had used the explosive Chroniton Bomb to erase literally half of their population from existence. It smashed open devestating Sario Rips all across the surface of their world. In the end, they kept the technology from us by launching a Chroniton Bomb against the residence of Doctor Sario himself. In essence, they erased the technology from existence, and only insulated buffer zones on the planet which had managed to protect themselves from changes in the timeline had alerted us to the fact that we had ever failed.

Over time, I cared less about his pain and suffering.

Over time, I began to play back fantasies of my own, speaking to him in a language I knew he understood. A language of taunting and terror.

Over time, I began to ignore him entirely.

By the time I was promoted out of my Ssstram host, on to a ship that would take me to the Hork-Bajir homeworld, I was much wiser about the way the galaxy worked. I should have listened to my elder Yeerks from the outset. They had encouraged me to ignore the body's old inhabitant. They had taught me that the host merely gets the body ready for me, it's /rightful/ master. That it's purpose once I had taken control was simply to provide me with information and mechanics on how the body operated, on how they tended to think and reason when not subjugated. They had assured me that with each new lesson, I would see that these creatures were nothing more than animals who would waste their lives on the smallest, basest pursuits, and that I was ascending their bodies to a higher purpose. A Yeerk purpose.

Two hosts and five years later, I was swimming blind in the Yeerk Pool on a new planet, a new gem for the glorious Yeerk empire. My Hork Bajir body was needed in the conflict, and I was given the choice regarding whether to remain within it or surrender it to a lower-ranking Yeerk and take on a native host body. The campaign was still in the infiltration stage - in fact, for the first time in our history, it looked like we were going to subjugate a species entirely by infiltration rather than conquest - and so I reasoned that the only way I would get to see the planet would be to take a native host. Due to my rank, the wait was brief, and a body was brought to me within days of my arrival on the planet.

I crawled into the host's ear canal, wrapped myself around the brain and clamped down. This host was different from the others. He was the first who had no idea what I was. He knew nothing of Yeerks, or of our infiltration of his world. As a result, he had no idea what my presence in his head meant.

He knew no malice towards me.

«Ummm, hello?» he called out to me, sensing my presence in his head. Such a simple creature, he was. A poster boy for the idyllic human condition. A loving father, a doting mother. A sibling who taunted him only on rare occasions, and even then with an undercurrent of care and appreciation. I had fought multiple wars and the biggest concern in his entire life was a forbidden longing for members of his own gender. Perhaps it was the pettiness of it all that drove me to anger with him.

«Silence, slave,» I ordered. «Your will is mine, now. You might as well pretend to be dead because your life doesn't belong to you.»

I could feel the despair already taking root within him, and yet he still retained a sort of ignorant hope. A belief that I must have some redeemable quality. «My name's Chris,» he informed me.

«I know your name,» I snapped. «I know everything you know about your entire life. I know you stole your brother's CD player this morning. I know you engage in perverse activities with other males of your species. I know you set fire to your father's work documents and then broke the window of your home and said that people from a rival company must have done it. I know that you've been horrible and sinful, and I am the punishment for your abhorrence.» Of course, I had no idea what a CD player was, nor did I have any real concept of anything else I taunted him with. In time, I would learn all about it and everything else human, but right then, my intent was simply to break his will. To make him submit, to make him see his worthlessness and inferiority. And I succeeded. My words brought shock and pain and shame and self-loathing to the child named Christopher Windward. My words made him feel rejected, made him feel low, and made him easier to control.

And as I lay there, in Chris' unconscious head almost two years later, I looked back on the memories and I felt a sense of shame in myself. I had always known that I had tortured him. But I had never truly broken his will, and slowly, over time, he became an embodiment of all that was wrong with the way my people obtained hosts. And the things that we did with them. I played baseball with his team, and I found myself oft thinking about how there would be no more baseball, no more romance, no more love of life for the humans after we laid claim to their world.

What I had never noticed was how much like me he truly was. When I had entered my first host I was the hopeful innocent, so sure that anyone in the galaxy could become a friend. I had been battered and bruised until I lost that belief, resented myself for ever holding it, and the true reason that I spent so much of my early months in Chris' head torturing him was because I recognized that hopeful innocence in him. That naiveté.

«Orkath?» Chris called out to me. I felt his mind begin to stir. He didn't feel fear yet - he did not remember what had happened to us. But he sought the familiarity of my mental "voice." He was calling out to me for comfort, security. He was calling out to me as a friend.

«Oh, Chris,» I murmured sorrowfully. «I wish my species had never found your planet. I'm sorry you've been put through all this.»

Again, I felt a wave of affection from my host, my friend. «It's alright. We'll be okay.» He let out a groan, the order from his brain reaching his mouth without any interference from me. «What happened?»

«We were hit with a bat,» I reminded him. «Do you feel alright?»

«You'd know better than I would,» he half-joked. «My head still hurts a bit, but I think I'm ready for you to open our eyes.»

«Okay, brace yourself,» I suggested. I had been considering surrendering the Animorph, Craig, that we had found in the hospital. I had been unsure for so long about where my allegiance lay. But there, in that split second between dreams and wakefulness, was when I had finally made up my mind. My place was with Chris. Whatever path we chose, whichever side we took, we would take it together. Slowly, I lifted our head, and opened our eyes...


	18. Misunderstanding

_Author's Note: Well, I appear to have made a slight continuity glitch with the books. In book #53, Tom's Yeerk bitches about the idea that 'I should at least be a sub-Visser by now'... while in chapter 11 of my fan fiction, I have already promoted him to the rank of Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine. I would actually assert that this is probably more a KASU than my fault, because how could Visser One's Chief of Security /not/ be a sub-visser at least? But in any case, the "mistake" stands... assume that it this alternate reality, that when Tom bitches to Jake, he'll bitch about not being one of the really low Vissers yet._

**Eric**

My name is Cadet Sergeant Eric Campbell. And if someone had told me five days earlier that I was going to have an alien slug living in my head /or/ that I was going to kiss the best looking boy in my school, I would have asked them what kinds of drugs they were taking. And yet, there I was, five days later, a veteran of both experiences and more. I'd seen creatures of three or four different alien species, and I'd turned into both a ferret and a flea. I didn't have a battle morph yet, but that was mostly because my new life was keeping me too busy to acquire one.

The knowledge that aliens were real had really freaked me out at first, when the governor had said it. And I guess I knew, even from that first moment, that my budding new B.F. was one of them. I'd almost saved him, but I was still somewhat naieve, and didn't realize the extent of the Yeerk infiltration into our society. I willingly boarded the ambulance that was meant to drag me kicking and screaming into the hands of a merciless enemy. But I was lucky, and instead I met Ewell Five-Nine-Three. Sometimes I call him Ewwww-L, when I want to tease him, but he knows it's good natured. In fact, he knows me so much better than anyone ever could. Every memory I have, he sees. And every memory he has, he shows me.

See, there are a growing number of Yeerks under Visser One's command who feel like this war is ridiculously unnecessary. The entire Yeerk species is composed of less than six hundred million, can you imagine that? China has more people in it than the entire Yeerk race put together. It took awhile, but the sheer grasp of that size has made some Yeerks very vocal about the idea that what they call involuntary hosts, or people who are forced to become Controllers, are no longer necessary. After all, out of a planet of five billion, surely they can find six hundred million voluntary hosts, right? Especially when they have so much to offer. Lifetime companionship, friendship. Symbiosis.

The Yeerks who think that way call themselves the Free Controllinists. It's a pretty lame name, but that's what happens when a social studies teacher leads an extraterrestrial movement. Mister Tidwell taught some of the first Yeerks in the movement about the original American colonists' struggle for freedom, someone played with the similarities between Controller and Colonist... you get the idea. And anyway, it's sort of a nod to the Animorphs, who did a similar thing with their name - Animal Morphers. In any case, it works for us.

One of the tactical risks that resistance members need to keep taking are their methods for host recruitment. After all, principle dictates that the host be voluntary, but tactically the people closest to the high-ranking Yeerks' hosts are the ones that can be most useful. That was how I was recruited. Martin, his Yeerk, a Hork-Bajir named Gwisa Noin and her Yeerk learned that the ambulance was arriving and seized me before the regular Controllers could, certain that my close proximity to Chris might enable me or my new Yeerk to learn something about Visser One's plans, and throw as many spanners into the works as we could.

"You're not taking me! You're not taking me!" I had cried, as Gwisa and Martin dragged me towards the infestation pier that first time. I could see the somber expressions on their faces, but I didn't understand them at the time. Then my head was pushed into the sludge, and Ewell made his first contacts with my brain.

The first thing I felt was Ewell's anxiety - he was very nervous about coming into my brain. And then he tapped open my most recent memories, and I immediately felt his despair.

«Despat, an involuntary,» he cursed. «Listen, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I don't want to do this to you, I really don't. Just... can I stay for a few hours, to put up appearances? Then I'll leave you, I promise.»

Admittedly, I didn't really hear him at first. Well, okay, I /heard/ him, of course... he was speaking directly into my mind. But I wasn't processing it. I was still dealing with all of the shocks I'd received that evening, added to the fact that it was no longer me moving my hands and legs. As Ewell used my mouth to thank Chris/Orkath for receiving me, it finally hit me. «You... you're letting me go?»

«Yes,» Ewell insisted, and it was more than just his words... I could /feel/ his sincerity. He was horrified at upsetting me. He meant it. «I'd let you go right now, but then you'd be killed and I'd be killed. My people have to believe that I'm controlling you. You have to let me tell you how to act, for your own good.» Then Ewell explained to me who he was, and about the Free Conrollinists. And by the time he was finished telling his story, I realized I had been given the most wonderful opportunity I could ever have hoped for in this unpleasantness. By the time he was finished, I was filled with admiration and respect. And I knew what I had to do.

«Stay in me,» I told Ewell.

Of course, this produced waves of joy and gratitude in him, but his thought-speak response was more cautious. «Are you sure? You'd be risking your life, just as I am. It's still nothing like what your old life was.»

By my own will, I aimed my eyes at Chris. I thought about the enemy, the Yeerk in his head, the one who had used my feelings to trick me into thinking that Chris loved me. Had lured me into the trap that, only through God's grace, had not been permanent enslavement. «I'm sure,» I told Ewell. «I want to do my part.»

Ewell sensed my apprehension and tried to comfort me. «He's been a Controller for a very long time,» he said to me. «By now, I'm sure he's come to accept that anything that happens is more his Yeerk's fault than anyone else's. You didn't upset him.»

«He was forced to kiss me, Ewell,» I grimaced. «Straight guys don't take it kindly when they french kiss other guys.»

Ewell shrugged my shoulders - already, we were sharing control of my body, although the random shrug must have looked out of place to Orkath. Fortunately, he was wandering towards the infestation pier already.

«After all the other things the Yeerk has made him do? I doubt any human could be that petty.»

I snickered in my own head. «You really /don't/ know our species very well, do you...»

«Well, no,» the Yeerk admitted. «You're my first human host. Actually only my second host ever. He glanced again over at Chris, being led into a Ramonite box - instantly, I already knew what it was called, without ever having heard the term before. He grinned. «Don't worry,» he said, «Chris will be free soon enough. One of our people is in there with him, an adult with a human confectionary business.»

«So he's in prison with another freedom fighter? How does that help?» I wondered.

The Yeerk stood off to one side, waiting for Orkath's swim in the pool to be up. «It helps,» he explained, «because we've learned that Chris' Yeerk is in line for promotion. He'll be a Sub-Visser... the extent of a Cadet Captain in your Civil Air Patrol. And our agent is morph-capable... he will acquire Chris' DNA discreetly.» I didn't really understand the signifigance of that at first, so Ewell explained (or more accurately, showed me a memory slideshow that explained) about morphing technology and how they had just acquired it. «Not many of us freedom fighters have it yet, but once we have the ability to impersonate Chris' Yeerk, we'll be able to order that all our own people receive the power.»

It had taken a few days to get the plan underway, but we had managed it. Chris was indeed promoted to Sub-Visser Eighty-Three, and in a stroke of luck, we were able to convince Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine that Chris had ordered us to be made morph-capable. Ewell and I both nearly had a heart attack shortly afterwards, when Chris/Orkath asked us to be locked in the morph-capable involuntary cage. We thought that he had somehow discovered our ruse and was going to have us interrogated. But, of course, it was just Orkath being particularly sadistic to poor Chris.

It was very hard to be locked up with Chris and pretend that Ewell was the same type of cruel master that Orkath was. But it was a surge of joy to find out that he had really felt about me the same way that I felt about him. It made the thought of freeing him from Orkath's control that much more sweet. The following day, Ewell and I had been ordered to lead my squadron of Civil Air Patrol cadets to assist in a massive perimeter blockade of the city, and to lead anyone attempting to enter or lead the city to the Yeerk pool for infestation. Martin had joined up as a new cadet a couple of days earlier, as an excuse to stay closer to me, and the two of us stopped a pair of detectives who were looking for Chris, in order to bring him to the out-of-town hospital. We saw it as our chance. We notified the adult who'd acquired the Chris morph and both he and I rode along as fleas in Martin's hair as he accompanied Chris to the hospital. Martin ran to the bathroom as soon as he got there, and we were able to demorph and obtain some clothing from the pediatrics ward.

The Animorph was a surprise. It only made the situation more urgent, though, once Orkath and the detective Controllers began to realize what Craig was. We couldn't let any of them leave there with that information, so, using the element of surprise, we took them by force. Martin morphed one of the detectives, Martin's Yeerk morphed the other, and the ice cream vendor, still in Chris morph, accompanied them back towards the Yeerk pool to begin the process of making sure all of the Free Controllinists acquired the morphing power. So far, our plan seemed to be a roaring success.

Ewell and I got the honor of guarding the real Chris and the real detectives, tied up in the hospital's morgue. It wasn't a safe place to wait out the entire three days that it would take for their Yeerks to starve, but it was proving sufficient for the moment. Ewell and I could only hope that our allies would return soon enough. Otherwise we would have to reveal our presence to the Animorphs in the hospital, and hope that they would choose to trust us instead of just eliminating us all.

With a groan, I heard Chris begin to stir, and I looked up from the dry newspaper article we'd been reading to pass the time. "Sub Visser," Ewell greeted with a grin. "It's good to see you're awake."

Surprise clearly registered on the face, and Chris's voice replied, "Eric?" There was a tenderness to it that impressed me - even though I knew better, I had the irrational thought that it was the real Chris, and not the Yeerk in Chris' head, that was talking to me.

"Yup," I conceded. "Eric. Surprised?"

"You... you can morph me?" Chris wondered.

I smirked. "Well, I can /now/," Ewell responded. "I acquired your DNA while you were unconscious. But it wasn't me who hit you with the bat - that was the ice cream vendor whom you were locked away with a few days ago."

Chris' face took on a puzzled expression. "But... but he couldn't have been infested when he was with Chris..." his Yeerk protested. I could practically see the Yeerk accessing his host's memories, coming to realize that the peaceful calm that Chris had felt when being held by the adult was really the acquiring trance that all animals feel when their DNA is being absorbed. Of course, neither Chris nor his Yeerk had ever been acquired before, so there was no way Chris would really recognize the feelings. All of the morph-capable members of the Free Controllinists can morph at least one other member, though, in case someone needs to be covered for.

"Beginning to realize it?" I taunted, picking up the bat again and walking towards him. "Soon, Yeerk, you'll be dead, and my boyfriend will be free again. Free of your torments."

Chris' eyes widened, but of course, it was only because the Yeerk was widening them. "No, wait!" he objected. "You don't understand, I'm not ev-"

I cut the Yeerk off, swinging the bat once again at Chris' head. The Yeerk was immobilized as Chris fell unconscious. "Sorry, Chris," I explained to the unconscious body, "but I can't risk your Yeerk using your morphing power to get away from this one. I have to keep you unconscious... until he starves."


	19. Converging

**Sub-Visser Eighty-Three (Orkath)**

I could feel the fugue. Not the true death throes of starvation, not yet, but I could feel that it was coming for me. Twice over the past day, Chris had regained consciousness. The second time I noticed that we were no longer at the hospital facility, but in one of the oatmeal storage areas on the perimeter of the Yeerk Pool complex. I assumed that they had made the move to avoid detection by Craig and the other Animorphs at the hospital. It was horribly ironic that I was going to die less than fifty meters from the life-giving nutrients that I needed, killed by an ally that had no idea I was his ally. Perhaps it was the most fitting punishment for all of the cruel, sadistic things I had done to Chris when I was first inside him. I didn't deserve his forgiveness.

And yet I did have his forgiveness, and his friendship. In his unconsciousness, he was having a blissfully absurd dream about me, in a human body, frolicking with him through green clouds over a river of marshmallow cream sauce. Not Eric, not Ewell or Craig or Jake… me. Perhaps it was his brain's way of expressing concern for me in it's stupor. Perhaps it was his brain's way of saying goodbye to me.

I waited out the day, and half the next one, listening to his thoughts and dreams. Making sure that he would be okay, that Eric's slugs to his head weren't causing any permanent damage. But as I felt the first pains of the fugue, I realized that I had to leave. I had no delusions of escape – I couldn't see out Chris' eyes, and I had every reason to think they'd be watching for me, ready to squish me the moment I fell out of his ear. But the fugue is said to be horrifying – the least I could do was spare him that torment. Maybe myself, as well. Resigning myself to my fate, I started to disconnect myself slowly from the neurons in Chris' brain.

«Goodbye,)() I murmured, his essence floating away from me as I hurtled out into the world.

**Christopher Windward**

I felt a slithering along my outer ear as I came around. Despite my awareness of the situation, I couldn't keep a groan from escaping me as I lifted my head and peered at over a ton of maple and ginger oatmeal in neat, tidy barrels. It drew the attention of Martin, the guard of the day, who picked up a Dracon beam weapon and aimed it at me.

"Wait," I tried to insist, but my voice came out all slurred and groggy.

"No worries, Sub-Visser," Martin insisted, leveling the beam on me. "It's getting near that time. You should stay awake for this part. I hear that Chris will be gifted with all of your memories towards the end, and that could be useful."

I waited a moment for Orkath to reply before I realized. "He's gone." I started to feel my blood boiling. "You killed him, he's gone! He was good, he'd changed, and now he's GONE!"

Martin shook his head. Or more than likely, the Yeerk did. I assumed that they were sharing control the way Orkath and I always did. "Don't be stupid, there's no way you went through the fugue without tossing and turning in the host. Just accept your death with dignity."

"I've got no Yeerk, you idiot!" I insisted to Martin. "Get out of Martin and search around in my brain if you don't believe me."

It was only then that Martin started to look uncertain. "But if he's not in you…" He crouched down underneath me, fingers running across a damp spot on the floor. The spot where Orkath must've fallen. "It's fresh," he announced, running his finger along. "But it doesn't feel fugued."

"He morphed," I speculated, struggling against the ropes binding me. "He morphed something small and he's trying to make his way back to the pool."

Martin gave me a concerned look. "I've got to tell Eric," he began, storming for the door. After five paces he stopped and turned around. "Good?"

"YES," I repeated, making my struggling motions more obvious. He took the hint and ran around behind me, untying my bonds. "He's been good for awhile now."

"Imagine that," Martin mused. "Two days babysitting and all that planning, and all we ever really had to do was walk up and ask."

"Not knowing who's on what side has it's disadvantages," I agreed, rubbing my arms now that they were free. "We've got to help him. Only insect he's got is a mosquito, and there's no way it can find it's way to the pool on it's own."

"It's okay," Martin said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Morphing should buy him some time. I don't think he'll feel the hunger anymore until he demorphs."

"/If/ he demorphs," I insisted. "He thinks he's surrounded by enemies, remember?"

**Eric Campbell**

I stood side-by-side with Visser One and watched as three hundred of my fellow humans – men, women and children – were unloaded from one of the trains and escorted to the infestation pier. Every bone in my body was shaking and there was nothing Ewell could do to calm it down. Fortunately, the Visser was used to such reactions in his presence, and didn't think anything of it. Just another scared underling. Certainly not a potential assassin.

«Are you sure about this?)() I insisted, tension radiating my thought-speak voice.

«You heard Mister Tidwell,)() Ewell reminded me. «Now that we're all morph-capable, we can be more ambitious with our plans. Imagine if we succeed, Eric. We can halt this invasion in it's tracks right now.)()

Against our collective will, Ewell and I found ourselves gazing upward at the hunter robots patrolling the pool from above. The plan was a simple one – we were to acquire the Andalite host body that the Visser was occupying and then run like hell. Our running was the signal to the Yeerk in the control tower, who would then order the hunter robots to attack Visser One. The trick would then be to get our people in place to carry away the Visser's body before the loyalist Yeerks could see that he was dead. Then we would morph to Andalite and take over the invasion effort entirely – which, of course, meant that we would order it slowed down and discreetly conspire with the human governments. Maybe even reach some kind of a settlement.

I reached out to touch the Visser's flank, but he chose just that moment to trot thirty meters to our left, approaching one of his Lieutenants. «Report,)() he ordered curtly.

The soldier stood at attention. "Four thousand, three hundred and eighteen new human hosts have been acquired within the last twelve hours, Visser. We have another two thousand unhosted humans locked up in the cages. We just received three thousand more Yeerks from the pool ship, but it's going to take time to get them all into host bodies. We're going to start overcrowding the containment facilities."

The Visser shook his head, all four eyes focused on the reporter. «Order the Taxxons to extend the pool's perimeter by ten feet in each direction. Tell them to eat any host bodies in the cages that need to be moved.)()

Slowly, we stalked towards the Visser, glancing around at all the cages that were along the pool's perimeter. Over five hundred humans and Hork-Bajir, sentenced to death just to make room for more Yeerks.

«We're not all like this, I swear,)() Ewell said guiltily in my head.

«I know,)() I responded grimly. «But I'm going to make him pay.)()

One stalk eye swiveled towards us as my hand came down hard on the Visser's rump. I closed my eyes and started concentrating on the Andalite form, but the Visser didn't fall into the acquiring trance fast enough. He swung his tail blade down and sliced my hand off clean at the wrist.

"AHHHHHHHH!" I screamed, the blood gushing from the stump as I started to back away. The Visser turned his body to face me.

«Going somewhere, Animorph?)() he taunted. He raised his tail blade again, but before he could bring it down on my head, it was singed by a hunter robot's laser weapon. I didn't need another opportunity – I turned and started flat-out running.

Three more laser blasts sounded behind me. «Oh, it's traitors, then, is it?)() he complained. «Computer, Elfangor!)()

At the shout of the long-dead Andalite's name, every hunter robot in the Pool area self-destructed.

**Sub-Visser Eighty-Three (Orkath)**

I made it into the pool. I was amazed that I'd even had time to morph mosquito. My little Yeerk antennae heard something that sounded kind of like a groan, and I thought for sure that was the foot coming for me. I guess it was Chris, waking up. The guard probably was too focused on him to notice me on the floor.

Once I was in the mosquito morph, it was much easier than my earlier shared experience with Chris. Turns out mosquitoes fly with little miniaturized air currents, such as the kind a human makes when they move. And since the Yeerk pool was the center of attention down here, most of the minitaturized air currents were moving towards it. I demorphed to Yeerk and opened up my pores, the sweet nutrients passing all over me. For a long time, I floated there and just fed. Eventually, something akin to a commotion started going on above me, but I couldn't focus on it. I was as a human stranded on an island for days who finally discovers a buffet. I could think of nothing but how sweet the rays of the Kandrona tasted upon my body.

Until I heard the Visser shout out, ()(Oh, it's traitors, then, is it,)() because then I knew that it was someone I cared about that was in trouble. I swam over to the edge of the pool and started growing, assuming Chris' form. But I was barely a foot long when the entire world exploded around me, hurtling me into the air.

**Christopher Windward**

I stepped out of the oatmeal shelter, eyes scanning all over the dismal pool, ignoring the wails of the condemned. I looked for anything trouble-like, because I figured if there was anything going on, Orkath would probably be a part of it. I spotted Visser One talking to one of his lieutenants. I crouched by one of the cages to get a better look, and wound up taking a heel to the face. I flew away from the cage, landing on my rump.

"Die, Yeerk," the woman who'd kicked me snarled, spitting at me. I recalled her from a mission briefing I'd attended shortly before I was given the morphing power. She was Jeanne Berenson, mother of Animorph leader Jake Berenson.

I wanted to take a moment to tell her I was free, that my Yeerk and so many others were helping her son in this war. Instead I got up and rubbed my face. "I don't have time for you," I grunted, stepping towards the Visser.

That was when I saw Eric reaching out for him, and I saw his tail slice Eric's hand off. "Noo!" I yelled – a sound fortunately drowned out by all the other moans and screams around me. I started running in that direction, but Martin tackled me just as the hunter robots started to go berserk on the Visser.

"It's all part of a plan," he whispered in my ear.

"It's suicide!" I yelled back, but my eyes stayed focused on my brave would-be boyfriend as he ran to find a place to hide. Already his beautiful blonde hair was starting to show streaks of red. The Visser yelled something into the air and the hunter robots all self-destructed.

"Damn," Martin cursed. "He must have had the system rigged." He snickered. "Give it up for the Visser. More paranoid than I thought."

"I've got to get to him," I insisted.

"You'll just get yourself caught, too," Martin hissed. "Focus on finding Orkath."

I elbowed Martin, and he tumbled backward. "Not Eric, the Visser. I've got to distract him, buy Eric some getaway ti.." I paused in mid-sentence, shocked. Amidst the humans in the cages cheering Eric on, I'd recognized a familiar voice. I turned my head and looked. It was my brother, Chance. He was in one of the cages near the infestation pier.

I ran quickly towards the cage, determined to open it. I didn't care who saw me or what they'd realize when they did – I /wasn't/ letting my big brother get taken by the Yeerks.

**Eric Campbell**

I had one chance – morphing. I started concentrating as much as I could on Chris' form, idly musing that it was a good thing I had spent so many times studying said form in the locker room at school. I had treated each longing glare as if it were a matter of life and death, and now that urgency was vindicated.

I could feel the stump of my left hand jutting outward, forming a new stump, new fingers. I wasn't clear enough on the morphing to know whether or not my injury would return when I demorphed, but for the moment, at least, the bleeding was stopping and I was getting two hands again. Not even a four-eyed Andalite could focus on all the different hunter robots without taking his eyes off of me, and I took the opportunity to melt into the crowd. My Civil Air Patrol uniform made it easier, at least, as there were plenty of troops of all branches down in the cavern. With a flash of insight, I reasoned my only real chance of escape – I bolted for a cage and dug out the key as quickly as I could. If I could just lock myself inside before the Visser caught my eye!

«Quick, the brass one, hurry!)() Ewell cried, not daring to try to help physically.

Unfortunately, the Visser caught sight of me just as I was closing the cage door. What he was seeing was Chris, of course, or Sub-Visser Eighty-Three. But he knew the real Sub-Visser wouldn't be locking himself in a cage.

I expected him to rush me, to bark out orders. But his stalk eyes swiveled towards each side. I followed the gaze of his left stalk-eye and I saw the ice-cream vendor in Chris morph, running down one of the train station platforms.

Then I followed the gaze of his right stalk-eye and I saw another Chris, presumably the real Chris, running towards one of the cages on the far bank of the pool.

Each Chris noticed the Visser's gaze and paused a moment, locked in some bizarre three-on-one stare.

And then, before anyone could say or do anything, a train launched off the track and flew into the Yeerk pool, smashing hundreds of slugs into the cavern walls.


	20. Exploding

**Eric Campbell**

"There are ten one-thousand pound bombs on this train. They're going to go off in four minutes from now. You have four minutes to evacuate. Anyone still here in four minutes is dead."

If there had had been panic before, Cassie's announcement produced utter pandemonium. Now we knew for sure the crash was no accident.

Visser One lost all interest in me, all four eyes focused hatefully on the Animorph girl even as she hopped off the train and treaded through the pool towards the cages, careful to keep her head above water. She briefly scanned the skies for the hunter robots, but, of course, she didn't stop to question why they were no longer in place. Which made it very, very clear to me that her words were no bluff – this installation was about to go up in smoke!

I ran back out of the cage, leaving the door wide open for the others to scatter out, and started to run headlong towards the next cage, but Ewell clamped down on me hard and started to demorph from Chris' form back into my own body.

«What are you DOING?» I demanded angrily, fighting to get control back.

Ewell's thought-speak response was colored by the frantic fear we both felt. «I'm morphing Cheep Cheep!» he responded, panic in his thought-speak voice. My uncle's decidedly adorable blue jay flashed through my memory momentarily, as he focused on the bird's feather patterns and melodic voice. «We've got to get out of here fast or we'll die!»

«We have to help the others!» I reminded him, although to be honest, the good majority of me wanted to get out of there too. But I couldn't bear the thought of having left when I could have helped.

«We'll never make it!» Ewell objected, but even as he did he began reversing the morph anyway. Our eyes scanned the chaotic crowd, looking for… what? The people most deserving of our help? It was impossible to think we could save all of them, not in less than four minutes, even if we resigned ourselves to death and opened cages 'til the last second. There were just too many of them. To be honest, I suppose I was looking for Chris, to make sure that he got out alright. But neither of the other Chrises was where he'd been when last I saw him, and I was wasting precious seconds in my indecision.

Fortunately, now that Ewell had agreed to help, he was more decisive than that. He went straight for the nearest cage and reached for his belt – only to discover that the key wasn't there! Frantically, we finished demorphing, idly wondering if there was even enough time to morph something with sharp blades and still have any hope of getting out ourselves. Thankfully, it never came to that, as a lady from the previous cage had thought to grab our keys and came over to open it.

"Quick, give me one!" I said, taking the keyring and sliding the nearest key, the silver one, off of it, before handing the ring back to her. The people in the cage bolted for the exits, and the lady took the rest of the keyring and ran towards the Animorph with the gorilla morph, who was struggling vainly to pull a cage door open.

I glanced around quickly and it was only then that I caught sight of Chris' brother, Chance, shaking the bars of another cage back and forth violently. In the cage with him were half a dozen humans, mostly other high schoolers. Immediately, Ewell bounded my legs in that direction. But was the silver key the right one for that cage? I couldn't remember the dumb coding system! Thankfully, it turned with a click, and Chance bounded outward with the others. «Okay, that's the best we're gonna do, let's go!» I declared, and Ewell started concentrating on Cheep Cheep.

It was one of the girls in the cage, incredibly one of the ones I'd heard screaming the loudest in despair and anger just minutes earlier, who had the consideration that even Ewell and I hadn't considered. She pointed to the pool and said, "What about the other Yeerks?"

"There's no time!" Ewell insisted, but the girl grabbed our shoulder and, jolted, we stopped morphing.

"No," she insisted, looking into my eyes as though trying to see Ewell through them. How she knew I still had a Yeerk in my head, I'm not sure. But she did. "You saved some of us, we'll save some of you." And with that, she ran towards the pool. Touched by her bravery, Ewell couldn't help but follow, not that I objected. I agreed.

We didn't make it more than a few steps before a horrible creature broke the surface of the pool, twenty bloodshot eyes staring around and twenty tentacles thrashing. Essentially what a temper-tantrum would look like if it were thrown by a cross between a squid and a spider. «Andalite scum!» the Visser cried, his thought-speak raging through the entire complex. «Vile human resistors! I will tear the heads from your bodies before I let you escape again!»

Needless to say, thoughts of saving any of the Yeerks in the pool were abandoned. «Not Cheep Cheep,» I told Ewell. «We need a morph that can lead Chance and the others out of here.»

Ewell broke my mouth into a smile. «Fine, I've got just the morph.» And with that, he led Chance and the others towards the Bug Fighters' hangar bay.

------------------------

**Christopher Windward**

«You want to fight?» the boy within the gorilla's body called out calmly, staring at the horrific monster that Visser One had become. I'd have stared in awe of the boy's courage, but I had more pressing matters. Like finding my brother, who was no longer in the cage he'd been in – or was that even the right one? I'd gotten so confused, so twisted around…

The morphing. That was the solution, my morphing power. I could morph the cougar and use it's sense of smell to track Chance, and perhaps Orkath.

«We can fight,» the gorilla assured Visser One matter-of-factly. «But it'll be a short fight. About one-and-a-half minutes, two minutes tops. And no survivors.»

A hand grasped my arm, breaking my concentration. I turned and looked into the eyes of Jean Berenson. "Where's Tom?" she asked, panicked.

"I don't know," I replied, just as panicked. I couldn't keep from glancing continually back towards the pool, and Visser One, while simultaneously scanning the crowds for Chance. Suddenly, morphing the cougar was the furthest thing from my mind. I glanced back at Jean and, in that moment, decided that saving the mother of the Animorphs' leader was the best thing I could do for the human race. Seeing his mom alive and free would boost Jake's morale, and could even make the difference between winning and losing the war. If Chance and Eric and Orkath died here, I would at least make sure that their deaths' weren't in vein. "We've got to get you out of here, though."

«Thaaaat's right,» the gorilla gloated, watching the Vissers' eyes turn towards the pool. «Ten one-thousand-pound bombs right behind you. No lie.» Already the Visser was pulling back, sinking under the pool, probably morphing to something that was capable of escape. If he felt that sort of urgency with all the powers of morphing at his disposal, what chance did a regular human like Jean have at this point? Taking her hand, I pulled forward, towards the staircase that led to the mall entrance.

"No," Jean said, pulling back firmly.

"What do you mean, 'no'," I asked, my voice sharp with controlled panic. "We don't have much time!"

"We don't have enough time at all," Jean insisted. "Not enough to escape."

"We can't just die in here!" I yelled, tugging again, but in my natural human body, I remained too much of a wuss to budge an adult from her footing.

Instead, she grabbed me, steadying me. "Think," she insisted, glancing around. "We'll never make it out of here in time… we have to find shelter IN here somewhere." She gestured towards the control tower, where the hunter robots had been controlled from. "What about that metal, will it survive the blast?"

"No," I replied, shaking my head with exasperation. "There's nothing down here that c…" I stopped abruptly, glancing back towards the oatmeal containment area. Thinking about the passageway behind it. "Wait, there IS a place we can go. The Kandrona!"

"Kandrona?" Jean asked, confused. "I thought those were just rays of light that these slugs fed on."

"Yes," I agreed, "rays of light that are emitted from a Kandrona Particle Generator. We used to keep one on top of the EGS Tower, but Jake and the others destroyed that one. It was replaced by two larger, reinforced units, including one placed in a shelter designed to remain intact if the pool was destroyed!"

"Great," Jean exclaimed, "but can we reach that shelter in a minute flat?"

Without wasting the time to answer verbally, I grabbed Jean's hand and ran flat out past the pool itself. Along the way I had the foresight to grab a cleaning bucket and just scoop into the sludgy water of the pool, tugging it along as I ran. Maybe a dozen or so Yeerks floated around inside, some of which were undoubtedly dead from the crash, but I didn't exactly have the time to sort them out – at least a few could be saved, and maybe one of them could tell me if Orkath had been seen in there. Flying into the oatmeal containment area, I kicked a barrel aside and pulled out the tunnel underneath, tossing first the bucket and then Jean downwards with reckless abandon, unwilling to wait the precious seconds needed to use the rung ladder. I hoped the outer shielding was enough! Down I jumped, closing the lid behind me. The fall was nearly twenty-five feet, and I felt a surge of pain in my ribs as I landed. Jean's fall had been easier on her, or at least it seemed so by the way she managed to limp towards the steel outer door.

"What's the code?" she asked desperately, glancing at the lit green panel on the door's side.

"Coffee," I responded, grabbing the bucket and dragging myself across the floor after her. She mumbled something about proof that the drink was evil before keying the code and popping open the door.

We barely had the chance to shut it before the first explosion rocked the cavern.

BA-BOOOOOM!

There was a short delay, and then it was as if an earthquake shook the shelter. I could only imagine the screams and cries and shrieks above as thousands of lives ended.

BA-BOOOOOM!

BA-BOOOOOM!

BA-BOOOOOM!

Explosions reverberated through one cavernous tunnel after another. Dirt shook from the ceiling and huge dents appeared in the walls. The lighting disappeared, save for the small blue hum of the machine in the corner, roughly the size of a small car – the Kandrona generator.

For several seconds, we were both silent, processing the fact that we were still alive. Then, relief flooded over us, and despite the fact that we'd seen each other maybe once in our entire lives, we embraced as fiercely as we would have had we been mother and son. "We're okay," I whispered happily.

"Alive, yes," she responded more skeptically. "Okay, I don't think so. Look." She pointed towards the blast door, dented inward. "We're not getting out of here any time soon."


	21. Cooperating

**Eric Campbell**

The devastation was incredible. Shopping centres. Wal-marts. Half the mall. All of them looked like a sand castle at the beach after some mean kid decided to kick it over. All of us, human and Hork-Bajir, free and Controller, stared out the Bug Fighter's viewports as it flew over the wreckage. Emergency vehicles were all around the ring of what was left of downtown, beginning the work of going through the bodies.

"There must be thousands of them down there," someone whispered, a female voice. I turned my attention away from the scene below and glanced in the Fighter itself. There were about twenty of us crammed into it, with very little breathing room. Everyone looked ragged. The Hork-Bajir were particularly restless – I guess the taller you are, the harder it is to be cramped. The humans were mostly trying to keep away from any accidents that squirming Hork-Bajir blades might be able to cause.

«We're going to have to take charge of these people,» Ewell suggested. «They're all shaken up, not thinking. They're going to start going nuts soon if somebody doesn't.»

I nodded my agreement, which, of course, was dumb, since Ewell was in my head, not looking at me. "Everyone," I called out, and slowly, surely, all of their attention turned to me.

«May I?» Ewell asked, and, understanding, I relaxed slightly, and then "I" glanced around at the Fighter's interior as best I could, given my small height. My eyes locked briefly on the very small hatch in the back, the one that contained the miniature Yeerk pool.

"Listen," Ewell said, using my voice. "There's, ummm, there's probably enough Kandrona rays in the pool for two Yeerks. Are there any Yeerks here that didn't get the chance to feed before the explosion?"

"I hope so," an older gentleman grumbled near the back of the Fighter – obviously an uninfested human.

A young man in his twenties turned angrily to glare at the gentleman. "Hey, we didn't have to save your asses, you worthless cows. Show some gratitude."

"Gratitude?" the older man responded, his voice rising. "You slugs have taken my wife and my children from me and you want my fu--"

"Please," Ewell called out pointedly, raising my hands to silence the bickering. "If we start fighting, we're going to crash and die." He gestured towards the frustrated woman at the controls, glancing paranoid over her back to make sure nobody was going to start wrestling behind her.

Ewell surveyed the crowd for a moment. "We have to put everything aside right now. We need each other if we're going to survive this."

Again, the older gentleman grumbled. "You mean you need /us/ if you're going to survive, don't you, Yeerk? Only you're not going to survive no matter what you do. Can't feed anymore. Can't feed, can't live, good riddance." He took a step towards us, anger in his voice, when suddenly Chance stepped between us.

"Stop it," Chance insisted, his tone both angry and testy. He looked oddly funny, a fourteen year old boy in his pyjamas staring down a grown man, but he was also determined, and there was too little room for the man to really do anything. He glanced around at everyone. "Now, I don't know what the hell is going on here, I really don't, but I do know this kid saved me from that cage, he saved both of us, so whatever your problem with him, it's obviously bigger than it should be."

Ewell smiled at that thought, but all I could think about was that Chris was probably dead now. Only two Bug Fighters managed to launch before the explosion, and I knew Chris wasn't on either of them. I knew he was in the pool – how could he have survived?

«You don't know he's dead,» Ewell sofltly reminded me. But he's my Yeerk – he couldn't hide his emotions from me. And I knew he didn't really believe Chris had survived either. Out loud, he said, "I get that you're upset, sir, I really do." He glanced around at the others in the fighter. "I'm sure a lot of you are. What my people have done to you, your families… it's inexcusable. But we're not all like that." He brought my hand to my chest. "I reside within my host with his consent, as do many of my brother Yeerks. Many of us have no desire to see anyone taken unwillingly, would have gladly come to your planet in peace and friendship if it had been our choice." He tried to make sure he made eye contact with everyone, human and Hork-Bajir alike. "I don't know how many of my fellow Yeerks in here feel that way. Maybe some of you had no problem taking your hosts unwillingly, ignoring their cries for freedom because our leaders taught you that humans were inferior to us." He gestured towards the window, towards what was left of the Yeerk pool below. "Well they're obviously not, you know. They just proved that they can be just as ruthless. And by warning us, giving us a chance to escape, they proved they can be just as compassionate, too." He paused, waiting to see if anyone would have anything to say in reply to his words. No one did. So he glanced at the pilot. "Set us down just outside of town. We'll let everyone off who wants to get off. And any Yeerks on board with unwilling hosts will get out of them and get into the pool."

"And then what?" the younger guy protested. "There's no more Kandrona, we're going to die." Everyone took a few moments to think about that.

«Do we know where the Kandrona generator is?» asked a Controller in bat morph, hanging from the bug fighter's ceiling. «We could park the ship close to it, get the rays.»

"No," Ewell replied. "I never had enough clearance to find out."

It was the pilot who had the answer. "Oatmeal," she said, glancing back at the group. "We can fly a few towns over, get some of the instant maple and ginger oatmeal."

"Doesn't that stuff make you go insane?" the younger guy lamented.

"Better insane than dead," Ewell pointed out, glancing towards the pilot. "But I thought it took awhile to work? Would it be enough to keep us alive past the three-day mark if we started eating it now?"

The pilot shrugged. "Maybe. If we took strong enough doses. Lived on the stuff for the next however-long-it-takes until we find the Kandrona."

Ewell nodded solemnly. "Okay then," he said, more to himself than anyone else. "Land, drop off the people who want out, and then split into two teams. One team goes for oatmeal, one team tries to find a Kandrona generator."

«Or a Yeerk with high enough rank to tell us where a Kandrona generator is,» I piped up. «And that's Chris' Yeerk. We need to go down there and join the rescue teams, see if we can get to him.»

«We don't have time for that, Eric,» Ewell chided. «We saw him running around down there, so he obviously got away from Martin. He must have re-fed before the explosion, we'd have to wait three more days to starve him before we learned anything. And that's assuming he's alive.»

«So? Three days isn't a long time when you're all eating oatmeal, right?» I pointed out, in what had to be the most surreal statement I'd ever made in my entire life. Even with the gravity of the situation, it was really hard to take the whole oatmeal thing seriously.

"Ummm, we can't land just yet," the pilot warned, gesturing towards the monitors with her chin. I moved over there by my own will, Ewell fading into the background again, and I saw some blips on the monitor screen.

"The blade ship," I observed, after Ewell told me what it was. I glanced over to the pilot. "Stay in formation with it, we want to look like we're on their side."

"We /are/ on their side," the younger guy observed testily, earning him a few glares. "Listen, I'd much prefer a willing host, myself, and there's sure as hell more than enough humans to go around. But in case you people forgot, we need /mouths/ for this oatmeal plan, we can't just sprinkle it into the pool to get the good effects. And I'm not getting out of this body just to appease some last-minute friendship hug while I still need that mouth. And I'm not about to turn on Visser One no matter /who/ just saved me down there."

"So you'd go crazy inside the guy?" the older, free human growled, balling into fists again. "Selfish Yeerk piece of crap, of course you would. Well we can knock you out of him, I'd think." Again, Chance stepped in between them, but this time the older gentleman shoved the boy out of the way. The Yeerk in the younger man stood his ground, ready to take a pre-emptive swing. But Chance got back up and literally butted the old man out of the way.

"Let me get this straight," Chance said, breathing a little heavily as he looked in between the two, eyes finally settling on the younger. "You're, like, some alien thing living inside that guy?" The man nodded. Chance looked to the older man. "And you /used/ to have an alien thing, but it, like, didn't have time to get back in you or whatever."

"Yeah, that's right," the older man said, grinding his fist in his other hand. "He's dead down there, just like they /all/ should be." He shot a pointed glance at me, and said, "Nice sentiment, but that kid you're in can't consent to you violating his body like that, he's too young to even understand what you've done to him. You're just manipulating him. And trying to manipulate us with your fancy words."

"I can so consent," I objected angrily, and I felt Ewell's gratitude and affection for sticking up for him. "He's the best company I ever had."

I was about to say more, but the pilot barked in with, "Can you guys just keep it steady so the blade ship doesn't collide with us?"

That quelled everyone's arguments for a short while. We slipped into formation with a dozen other Bug Fighters, flying at all angles alongside the blade ship as it hovered over the town. It fired two controlled shots at emergency vehicles on the far side of the sinkhole before moving to touch down in that area. Visser One emerged, in the twenty-tentacled amphibious morph we had seen him in earlier, and scrambled towards the docking port, glancing around in fear of the skies as Bug Fighters patrolled them, keeping watch for Animorph assassins.

"All the Bug Fighters are getting orders," the pilot announced. "We're to touch down in the garage facilities on the outer perimeter, the ones out of town, and wait for further instructions."

"Well, let's do it, then," I suggested. "We need to land anyway, and we don't want to seem insubordinate." The fighter circled around the mall one more time before heading west, landing on top of an auto mechanic's shop next to a Subway. There were already people looting the nearby grocery store, stealing all kinds of foods in a panic as they started to evacuate the area. "It's going to be tough to walk around out there," I pointed out.

When the hatch opened, everyone scrambled out into the garage itself. Ewell took over, addressing the group again. "Everyone who's going, good luck." He waited for a minute, and seven of the twenty – six humans and a Hork-Bajir – strolled casually out the front door.

The angry older gentleman stayed with us, though, and gestured to the younger guy. "I want that Yeerk out of his host body," he demanded.

"No," the younger guy retorted. The two were about to come to blows again. Ewell nodded to a Hork-Bajir-Controller, who grabbed them both.

"Knock it off," Ewell insisted. He glanced at the younger. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Scott Ca-" the guy started, but Ewell cut him off.

"_Your_ name," Ewell insisted.

"Maylis Three-Nine-Eight," the guy replied.

Ewell nodded. "Get out of your host body, Maylis," he commanded. When the Yeerk looked like it was beginning to protest, Ewell held up my hand and said, "Relax, you're not going to die. Eric here will host you, if he's willing, and I'll go into the pool."

«What? No,» I complained. «I don't want that Yeerk in me, he seems like a real jerk.»

«He's just trying to survive, Eric,» Ewell pointed out. «You might be doing the same if you were him. Won't you at least think about it for a minute?»

I didn't have to, though. Chance piped up instead. "What about me? Couldn't one of you go inside me?"

Ewell turned my head to regard Chance. "You'd be willing to do that for us?" he asked, surprised.

Chance shrugged. "Sure. I mean, as long as it doesn't hurt a lot or anything, I…"

"Is this the kind of 'consent' you got from your host?" the older guy interrupted, sneering at me. "This kid has no idea what he's volunteering for." He turned towards the younger guy. "Come to /me/, Yeerk. That way you can't get in this dumb kid and turn around in three days or six or whatever and say that he changed my mind and 'consented' to let you stay, cause I've /been/ a Controller before, and I'm telling everyone, right here, right now, that I want your slimy ass out of me as soon as it can be."

Chance gave the old guy an angry stare, clearly uncomfortable with being referred to as a dumb kid. But the terms seemed acceptable to Maylis, who began disengaging from young Scott's ear and sliding into the hands of the woman who'd been piloting the ship. Chance's anger gave way to amazement as he saw the Yeerk slug for the first time, watching it as she brought it up to the old man's ear and let it squirm it's way inside.

"Coooool," he murmured. Scott, now free, took one long glance around at us and then ran for the exit at top speed.

The rest split into two groups. Six of us – me, Chance, two Hork-Bajir, the pilot woman, and the now-infested old man – formed the team that would go back to the wreckage and search for Chris. On the way, we filled Chance in on exactly why Chris was so important.

"So… my brother has had one of your people living in his head from the beginning, and it was important enough to know where this hidden food thing is?" Chance summed up, when we were finished.

Ewell nodded my head. "Sub-Visser Twenty Nine," I said bitterly. "By all accounts, one of the most vicious bastards in the whole Yeerk species."

Chance clenched his fists. "God… I can't, I… and he was down there... do you think there's any chance that he's alive?" His voice was on the edge of tears.

"I don't know," I admitted, trying to keep my own voice even. If we started crying, we'd probably never stop. "I just don't know."


	22. Surviving

«»

**Christopher Windward**

Okay, I admit it – I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer.

All I have to say is, don't judge me until you've been there yourself. Unless you've actually been buried under two tons of rock and worried about how much air you've got left, you have no idea how hard it is to think clearly and remember everything you have at your disposal. So just shut up and don't laugh.

It had been forty minutes. Just me and Jake's mom, buried alive with a machine that was making the room hotter by the second as those bouncy rays, lifegiving to Yeerks, were being deflected back at us. I guess there was only so much solid mass that the rays could actually get through – I mean, I know we, err, they, used to keep a Kandrona on the top floor of a skyscraper, but really when you think about it, that's not many layers of solid to go through. Just the paper-thin glass of the building and the fifty or so feet from the street to the Yeerk Pool, and even then there were all the openings that the rays could travel through. Probably like a cell phone signal.

Well now we were the only ones getting the signal. Well, us and the twenty or so Yeerks in the bucket, who were all swimming violently around in a panic.

"Guess I saved you guys for nothin'," I mumbled at the bucket, sitting dejectedly against one of the metal walls. To my right was a small pile of rocks, barely a foot tall, where I had been trying, despite the waves of pain in my chest from the broken ribs I had attained during the fall, to dig our way out. A useless, counterproductive effort – I had wound up shifting the other rocks so that they caved in even further, shortening the room by half a foot and probably plugging up whatever air holes there might have been.

Jean shook her head, crouching by me and placing a hand tenderly on my shoulder. "You're a better person than me for trying," she said gently. "I'd have just let them starve."

I shrugged. "They're not /all/ bad, y'know," I told her. I didn't see any harm in telling her now – Orkath was most likely dead anyway. "Some of them are… were… pretty decent people." I bit my lip and choked back a tear. _There'll be time to mourn later_, I told myself, although I mostly said it just to convince myself that there would /be/ a later for us.

"I know," Jean admitted. "My Yeerk was… well, he didn't even want to be in me, really. He'd always wanted a different host body, something called a Naharan. He wanted something with a really good sense of smell, because he wanted to study botany." She smirked. "I used to picture him as a slug with glasses." She sighed, her face taking on a hard edge. "My husband's Yeerk was a real bastard, though. I won't shed any tears when /she/ starves."

I sighed, keeping my attention on the bucket. I didn't want to hear about the Yeerks she'd known. Not for the first time, I found myself wishing they'd never found my planet, although this time it wasn't for what they'd done to us – it was because I felt like a part of me had died. "I wish I could tell them what's going on," I said, nudging my head towards the bucket. "We're toast, but they'll be safe and well-fed in that bucket for years."

"You could always take one, let it inside you," Jean suggested. "Then it could tell the others when it crawled back out."

I shook my head. "We don't know who they are," I told her. "We get one of the harsher ones, he's liable to use my morphing power to b—" My eyes went wide. I stared at her, and then the bucket, and then the wall of rocks.

I had forgotten that I could morph.

Like I said, I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer.

"Stand back," I told her, concentrating on the form of the Hork-Bajir guard that was floating in my DNA. The first thing to change was my height, shooting me up two feet higher. Then my legs fleshed out, becoming the well-toned, muscular legs of a bodybuilder before Hork-Bajir scale patterns erupted from them. Then, blissfully, the pain in my chest disappeared as my broken ribs shifted with the others into a perfectly healthy Hork-Bajir torso, protecting both my regular heart and the extra one that had sprung into existence near my spleen. Then, the blades came – they shot out everywhere at once, from my arms, legs, even my still-human head. I glanced at the metal of the Kandrona, and sprouted a smile. "I look like a demon," I commented. I would have said more, but my tongue suddenly shrank and forked, like a snake's, and my vision changed, suddenly becoming like a computer with the color scheme dropped way down and the contrast pumped way up.

When the morph completed, I raised one bladed hand and looked over at the rocks entombing us. «This should be easier now,» I commented in thought-speak.

Here's the thing, though – turns out a Hork-Bajir warrior is even less useful against a stone blockade than a human teenager. Sure, they have great strength, but their blades were designed for stripping bark from trees. Bark was tough, but not even remotely as tough as solid rock, and my first swing at the rock wall nearly snapped one of my arm blades in twain. "Gffffraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash!" I screamed, the guttural roar of pain garbled by my literally alien vocal chords. Even when I tried gently moving the rocks, I found that my blades would prevent me from getting a good grip on one or another. It was like trying to do a puzzle with gloves on – I needed more finesse than my hands would allow.

Frustrated, I demorphed, only then realizing that I had shredded the clothing Eric had gotten for me when I went Hork-Bajir. I let out a sigh, cursing my stupidity, although truthfully, modesty was the furthest thing from my mind. If anything I was glad that I didn't have to endure the Kandrona-generated heatwave in long-sleeved clothes. But it was, again, evidence that I just wasn't thinking.

I looked at the impenetrable barrier before us and tried not to succumb to my growing weariness. I needed to start using my head. "What would Jake do?" I asked, turning curiously towards his mother.

Jean smiled wistfully at the question, pride in her son's accomplishments obvious. That pride wasn't going to get us out of here, though. "I don't know," she admitted, shrugging her shoulders. "He had to keep this part of his life secret from us; to be honest, I didn't think he had much in the way of leadership skills, always mimicking what his brother did."

I nodded solemnly, smirking at the irony. "Well, he'd have an idea for this, I'm sure."

Jean nodded. "I suppose. He never really got into chess, but he was always into video games that involved strategy and tactics."

"Strategy and tactics," I murmured, looking around for inspiration. "Okay, so for assets we have a bucket of Yeerks, a super hot Kan…" I stopped, staring at the infernal heat-generating machine like it was a fully stocked refrigerator. "The Kandrona."

Mrs. Berenson's brow furrowed. "What, can it get us out of here somehow?"

I smirked. "Oh yeah, 'somehow'. It's the Yeerks' only Earth-based food supply, and it would take months to get another from the Yeerk home world."

"So?" Jean asked.

"So we don't have to dig our way out of here," I explained. "Any Yeerks who survived the explosion are going to be doing the digging for us. Getting this thing out and securing it is going to be, like, priority one for them."

"That just means we have to get out of here quickly, before they get here!" Jean insisted. "I don't want them to take me over again!"

I shook my head. For once, I was thinking ahead. "Oh, I've got just the morph for handling /them," I assured her. "But you'd have to trust me."

And so it was that a few hours later, when we heard the sound of Dracon fire and Taxxon breathing heading towards us, I put my plan into action. "Don't let the Taxxons lead!" Jean shouted as I began morphing. "I'm alive in here and I have an injury!" She shouted it again and again, even as I felt the world shrinking away from me. Even as I lost the ability to see, and her voice lost any meaning for me. Even as I surrendered myself to the instincts of my new morph, letting it take me where it wanted to go.

By the time the rescue teams broke through, I had no trouble seeing them. The lead human glanced me over suspiciously, glancing at the tears in my dress. "Identify yourself," he demanded.

"Sub-Visser Eighty-Three," I responded haughtily, using my connections to Jean's brain to twist her mouth into a wry grin. _So_, I thought to myself, _this is how Orkath felt_.

I had to admit, it was a good feeling.


	23. Regrouping

"Thank you, that's much better," I told the young policeman, sipping the warm mug of coffee he'd brought he as I settled into my chair again. We were in the manager's office of the local grocery store, less than two blocks away from Ground Zero, as people were calling it. A blanket was draped around "my" shoulders, as is somewhat traditional for disaster survivors.

Less traditional, perhaps, were the blanketed Hork-Bajir recovering in the produce section, or the two Taxxons who were helping take care of the meat department before the loss of power in that section of the building made the meat rot. Not that the Taxxons would have cared, I suppose.

"I know," the policeman said, watching me stare down at the half-lit facility through the manager's window. "We have no way of knowing how many of them aren't our people anymore."

I nodded Jeanne's head, gesturing out the window with my/her forward finger. "The ones with Yeerks will need to feed soon," I pointed out. A surge of guilt hit me as I felt Jeanne's annoyance radiating through our shared body. Controlling Jeanne's body was something I was getting far too used to, and I hadn't even bothered consulting her or asking her permission before speaking – essentially, I was behaving like a typical Yeerk. I blamed it on the weariness - three times already, I'd had to make a "quick bathroom trip" to demorph to human and remorph to Yeerk within the two-hour time limit. While not as physically draining as rapid-fire morphing, it was still emotionally exhausting, and making me feel a little irritable. But to be honest, part of it was just convenience. Why double-check every little thing when I know what I'm doing?

Of course, it could also have been the memories.

Jeanne's memories were everywhere, and try as I might, I couldn't figure out how to keep from accessing them as I used the connections I had to her brain. I tried to brush back her hair, and I was assaulted with the memory of Tom at the age of seven, cuddled in her lap and tugging at that hair as four year old Jake sat attentively in front of them, waiting for a bedtime story. I tried to stand up, and I saw Jake storming away from the breakfast table because Tom wouldn't stop trying to get him to join the Sharing.

"_It's just not his thing," Jeanne had said to her oldest son, scooping the half-eaten pancakes off Jake's plate and running water over it. "He had to stop following in your footsteps someday."_

"_Mom," Tom had said, his voice laced with arrogance, "it'll be everybody's thing some day. You'll see." _

"Mmmm," the policeman replied, snapping me out of Jeanne's thoughts. "We have the Kandrona, but we don't have a pool. There's no way we can use the original – too much debris and bad chemicals. And even if that weren't the case, they're still scouring it for survivors."

"Is that even possible?" I wondered, raising a curious brow in the policeman's direction.

He nodded, but his facial expression was grim. "We've only found a handful, so far. Most were boiled to death when the explosion heated up the pool, and a lot of the others were squished by falling debris." He shook his head. "Ten thousand Yeerks. So many of them just grubs…"

Perhaps it wasn't the wisest retort, but I just couldn't help myself – it came out despite my best efforts to stop it. "Human children have given their lives as well." I tried to make it at least sound more satisfactory and less retaliatory.

The policeman Yeerk, as it turns out, was barely half-listening, and not thinking much about his own words. "Aye. Too many lives all around."

«Perhaps he's a member of the resistance,» Jeanne wondered, echoing my thoughts as though she could read them.

I sighed. «Mmmm. Another potential ally, and neither of us can ever ask the other, because we're dead if we guess wrong.» I sipped my coffee, shaking my head. «Orkath would tell me to feel him out, of course. Tell me that my sexuality made me better prepared for the job than any other human could be, since gay teens go through the same thing all the time.» I put the coffee cup down, closing our eyes. «God, I miss him. I actually miss my Yeerk.»

«He sounds… nice,» Jeanne admitted, her emotions as open to me as a book. She was struggling between her disdain for Yeerks in general, what they had done to her sons, and what she knew of them through me and through her own Yeerk, whom she also missed, a little bit. «Is he the Yeerk your morph is from?»

I shook our head, and was about to reply when I felt a touch on Jeanne's shoulder. I opened my eyes to discover that the policeman had placed his hand there, and was looking at us in a longing sort of way. "The humans," he said nervously, a shaky grin on his face, "they seem to think touches like this can help when you're distressed."

I raised Jeanne's brow. "Is it helping?" I asked earnestly, somewhat involuntarily curling up Jeanne's lips in a wry smile of our own. The policeman didn't answer, instead leaning forward, intent on putting his lips on mine. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to stop him or allow him the comfort, given the extreme circumstances. Even my "host", a married woman, seemed unsure of what to do. What's the etiquette supposed to be after a wartime disaster?

Fortunately, the kiss never came, as we were distracted by the unmistakable sound of Hork-Bajir footsteps trying to navigate up a slim staircase designed for humans. The policeman pulled back and tugged down on his uniform shirt, clearing his throat. He seemed to want to be looking anywhere but at us when the Hork-Bajir entered the room.

"New orders gubik Assalsh uTal Visser," the Hork-Bajir declared, carrying a small Yeerkish communicator into the room with him. Using a power adapter, he plugged the device into a working outlet, and the three-dimensional hologram of Visser One appeared in the room, causing both the policeman and I to stand rigidly at attention. "Sub-Visser Eighty-Three afjis foi, Visser," the Hork-Bajir said, gesturing towards me.

«Status report,» Visser One demanded curtly, three of his four angry Andalite eyes landing square on me.

For a moment, I stared blankly at the figure. «What do I say?» I asked Jeanne, nearly panicking.

«What would Orkath have said?» Jeanne asked simply. How she could be so nauseatingly calm was a mystery to me. If it hadn't been just a hologram, I'd have pissed myself and run from the deck. I had no idea how Eric had managed to actually touch the Andalite-Controller, in a foolish bid to save humanity. So brave he had been… and it had cost him his life.

The grief that thought brought to me was nearly overwhelming, but it did help me find my voice. Orkath died trying for the freedom of the pool. Eric died fighting for the freedom of humanity. If they could be so noble, I wasn't about to play the coward. "Visser, I'm relieved to see that you survived the explosion. Our people have been sear-"

«Yes, yes, dispense the formalities,» the Visser ordered, cutting me off with a curt wave of his hand. «What does the situation on the ground look like?»

I recalled what I had seen when the Yeerk rescue team led me out of the wreckage. "Total dead is likely over three thousand peop, er, host bodies, and twice as many Yeerks from the pool. There's no longer any way to tell who is with us and who is against us. There are three rescue teams down here. Ours is the moderate one, we've converted the grocery store into a relief center for both Controllers and non-Controllers." I grinned. "No sense wasting good host bodies, after all."

The Visser nodded. «The other two?»

"The humans from the military installation who brought the bombs into the city are setting up a base camp on the northeast side of the wreckage. They've created a quarantine center where they intend to hold everyone they care for for three days, to ensure that we are not among them. On the northwest side of the wreckage, a Yeerkish contingent is pulling people out of the wreckage and eliminating any host bodies who cannot answer basic questions about Yeerkish history." I kept the report as neutral as possible, but I suppose it was impossible not to show my bias against both alternatives. I was grateful that this was the group that found me.

The Visser seemed to consider my information for a moment. «How many Bug Fighters would it take to accommodate both your group and the other Yeerk group?»

"Eighteen, perhaps," I guessed, glancing over at the policeman. "We don't really have accurate numbers on how many are in the other camp." I glanced back at the Visser. "We also have the Kandrona."

«Prepare it for transport aboard the Blade ship,» the Visser ordered. «And keep it under guard until then. Defend it to the last Yeerk, if necessary. I will order the other group to merge with yours; you will be in overall command.»

"Understood, Visser," I said with a nod. "May the light of the Kandrona shine upon you."

The Visser vanished without reply.

«Well,» Jeanne commented, «that was a perfect impersonation.»

«Thanks,» I replied. «Guess I never realized how much I was learning, watching Orkath all the time. But I really don't want to give him the Kandrona.» I sighed. «But I don't want to destroy it either. All those good Yeerks we would be killing…»

«It's a war,» Jeanne said simply. «I'm sure some of them would understand.»

«That's not good enough,» I insisted.

I turned towards the policeman. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Tom Cyglia," the policeman replied. "Or Piffin Three-One-Eight of the Hett Simplatt pool."

I pointed towards the door. "Order two delegates from our camp to proceed to the northwest sector and talk to our people. Don't tell them we have the Kandrona; just tell them we have orders from the Visser to combine our forces and hold this area until the Blade ship arrives." I started towards the stairs, gesturing to the Hork-Bajir to follow. "And you, come with me. We'll be going to the northeast sector, and explaining a thing or two to these humans about the treatment of prisoners."

No one questioned my orders as we left. And I thought to myself that maybe I wasn't the dullest knife in the drawer either.


	24. Blurring

Author's Note: It has come to my attention that I use "Jean" and "Jeanne" alternatively when referring to Jake's mom. This is because "Jean", in my cozy little world, has always exclusively been a boy's name, and Jeanne seems to me to be the appropriate female version. The actual name is only used once in the series, in Animorphs #50, and by that 'canon', Jean is apparently the correct name. I will, henceforth, use the name Jean exclusively, and eventually I'll go back and fix it and take out this note. Also, please note for continuity purposes, at this chapter we are still in the gap between Animorphs #52 and #53.

--------------------------

"My name is Orkath One-Seven-Two of the Hett Simplatt pool," I declared aloud, making Jean's voice sound as commanding as I could. "I am in command of Yeerk forces in this area, and I speak for the Yeerk Empire." Behind me, the policeman and another human-controller, a teenage girl in a grocery clerks uniform, held up makeshift white flags of truce that had been hastily put together from broomsticks, duct tape and rolls of toilet paper. It was my hope that this very human tradition of parley would appeal to whatever military commander was running the show within their encampment. Four Hork-Bajir warriors with Dracon beams stood ready in case I was wrong.

Similarly, about a dozen human soldiers with M16s had their weapons trained on our contingent, but none fired. They were deferring to a tough-looking brunette woman in her early thirties with a blue naval uniform and captains' bars, flanked by two green-fatigued army sergeants. One held a pistol while the other, amusingly enough, held a legal pad on a clipboard. Glancing around at the defensive troops, I added, "I am here under flag of truce and my men do not have their weapons raised. I would appreciate the same courtesy."

The woman hesitated only a moment before sticking her arm out and bobbing her open hand up and down. The soldiers understood the signal and, with one exception, lowered their weapons. The sergeant with the pistol turned his attention, and his gun, towards this single disobedient troop. "Lower your weapon, private, that was an order."

The troop was keeping her eyes moving between the woman in the navy blue and the Hork-Bajir. "But sir," the troop replied, "what if she's one of them?" There was an edge of panic in her voice. "What if we're being led into a trap? We have t-" She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence, as the soldier to her left delivered a hard right cross to her face and the solider to her right grabbed her M16 and pulled it away.

"There seems to be some dissension in your ranks, human," the policeman commented. He seemed about to say more, but an icy glare from me shut him up. This was definitely not the time for provocations.

"No dissention that you didn't put there, slug," the navy woman replied. She fixed her gaze on me. "What is it you want from us?" she asked curiously.

I held my hands apart in a gesture of non-violence. "It is my understanding that you are quarantining a good number of your men for three days in order to weed us out."

The woman nodded, producing a false smile. "That is the general idea, yes."

It felt weird to speak as though I were really a Yeerk, to be negotiating on the 'wrong' side of this conflict. But then, just about everything about the conflict was weird, from a human perspective. "You are aware that my people will die in the process?"

The woman smiled more genuinely. "You're welcome to try to rescue them, but I wouldn't advise it." She gestured towards the ruins of downtown, her voice taking on a passionate edge. "This was my home, Yeerk. That may be a concept you don't understand. Home. But it's important to humans, the concept of home, and believe me when I say that your people will pay for what you've done to mine."

I tried to ignore the indignation in her tone, and the empathy I felt for her. _It was my home, too,_ I thought, but I didn't let the grief show in my voice. I kept my tone even and as neutral as possible. "What is your name, human?"

"Captain Margaret Haddix," the woman replied indignantly, "of the United States Navy."

I gestured behind the woman, towards the camps and tents where barely a hundred soldiers were trying to keep pace with over a thousand civilian refugees. "Captain, any of my people who are in there are prisoners of war. Your human society has rules regarding the treatment of such prisoners – 'Geneva Convention', I believe it's called?"

The Captain seemed surprised at that assertion, and her reply was far more diplomatic. "As far as I know, your people are not signatories to the convention, Orkath. I doubt you've been here for /that/ long."

"You're right, we haven't," I replied, letting some amusement slip into my tone. "But we were led to believe that your people held such a principle dear to them. 'Sanctity of life' and such."

"Actually, I believe the phrase we usually use is 'sanctity of _human_ life'." She cast a sideways glance at one of her aides, and then looked back at me. "Again I ask, what do you want from us?"

"A prisoner exchange," I proposed. I gestured at the unconscious woman on the ground. "You, obviously, need more people whom you know are not Controllers, and you need them before the three day limit is up. I need to ensure that even more Yeerks do not die senselessly. Both goals can be accomplished by simply allowing me to address the people you're quarantining. Allow me to order the Yeerks out of their host bodies and take them with me."

Captain Haddix raised a brow. "And the prisoner whose voice you're using to speak to me right now?" she asked pointedly.

"What makes you assume I'm a prisoner?" I heard Jean's mouth say, a statement which must have seemed quite at odds with the look of surprise I involuntarily twisted her face into. I hadn't been attempting to control or monitor Jean, and her sudden outburst surprised me. My Yeerk morph's instinct was to clamp down hard on her, focus more on keeping control over the host body, and I'm shamed to admit that at first, I followed that instinct blindly, preventing her from speaking further.

«Hey, what are you doing?» Jean demanded angrily. I ignored her, keeping my focus on the human contingent. Captain Haddix, particularly, was staring at me sagely, seemingly aware that something was going on which she could not perceive.

Either the truth didn't occur to her, or she chose to go with the simplest assumption. "I assume 'you' are a prisoner because I already know there's a slug in there talking to me," she asserted. "I doubt any human would submit to that freely."

"Would it help if I stepped out of my host for a moment, Captain?" I asked earnestly. "Then you could hear from her own mouth that there are some humans who prefer our company."

«No! What are you DOING?» Jean screamed, and with all of her willpower, she fought me for control of the body. I fought back instinctively, but I was tired and irritable and juggling far too much at once, and she succeeded in shifting our eyes to the right, fixing our gaze on the policeman Controller we'd been with earlier.

And that's when I realized my mistake. He was eyeing us warily. _Very_ warily. He was aware that my host was Jake's mother – her capture was such a valuable victory for Visser One that he'd mad sure every Yeerk on Earth was aware of it. And he knew that she was probably the least likely human alive to be a voluntary Controller at this point. Our eyes locked with his, and the look he gave us said it all: You can't possibly know how she'd react unless you were working with her. And she wouldn't be working with you if you were acting against her son.

He cleared his throat, and suddenly I felt sure that the Hork-Bajir 'protectors' behind me were about to become my firing squad. But instead, he smiled wryly. "What Orkath means, Captain, is that while her host body doesn't enjoy infestation, she'd be sure to prefer it to the experience of yet another Yeerk dying in her head. This particular host has felt a Yeerk die within her before, and it was hardly a pleasant experience."

«You have?» I asked, surprised.

«Of course not, Chris,» Jean responded, in a rather condescending, annoyed tone of voice. «He's saving our asses. He's a member of their resistance.»

Again, Jean pushed at the mental hold I had on her, and this time, I let go and allowed her to take control. I was too much of a wreck, too sad about Chance and Eric and Orkath. I was dealing with too much for too long, and it was finally time to sit back and let someone else handle it. "We can spare your people that experience," Jean said, speaking as though she were me. Or Orkath. Or me pretending to be Orkath. Whatever. "All we have to do is order the Yeerks out now."

"But the experience is survivable," the Captain pointed out. "Since your host survived it." She shrugged. "Putting aside my considerable anger at your race, you really have nothing to bargain with, here. All you're offering is to free people who are already in my custody, already on the road to being free. And in return I lose possibly hundreds of valuable interrogation suspects, and you get the opportunity to stick your people in other host bodies you've undoubtedly captured, increasing your fighting force." She shook her head, smiling. "No, if it's just the lives of your people that you're concerned with, why don't you supply us with a way to feed them ourselves? Your people get to live, our people get spared this supposedly horrible experience of having them die while connected, and we get to retain our prisoners until a more equitable solution can be reached."

"That's not possible, for technical reasons," Jean admitted. "There's only one food source on this planet right now."

I was barely paying attention. I was sobbing in the back of Jean's head, thinking about all that I had lost. But the admission got the Captain's attention, and the Controller policeman's, in a big way. "Y'know," the Captain said, "you're not the best negotiator, Orkath. Telling your enemy about a tactical weakness like that is definitely not a smart move." With that, she snapped her fingers, and the remaining nine human guards lifted their weapons again. "Where is that food source, exactly?"

I could sense that Jean was about to tell her. «What're you doing?» I asked, the rapidly changing situation snapping me out of my depressed stupor. I searched Jean's recent thoughts for an explanation, and found the truth – she didn't really appreciate the fact that some Yeerks were worth saving, nor was she interested in negotiating a co-existence. She acknowledged it, but considered their sacrifice a small price to pay to ensure that her son – and the rest of humanity – was kept safe from their race as a whole.

It wasn't really until that moment that I realized how badly I /did/ want to make peace with the Yeerks. How badly I wanted to ensure that Orkath, who had died as my friend, would not have all of the trust and friendship that we'd built between us in his last days used as the catalyst to genocide of his entire race.

And so I clamped down. Hard. And I said the words that I knew Orkath would have said, had he been here. "We came to you under flag of truce, Captain. Surely your species is not so dishonorable as to violate that for the sake of a brief tactical advantage? Because if you are, then clearly my kind is quite justified in taking such decisions out of your hands." With that I, too, snapped my fingers, and the Hork-Bajir also raised their weapons threateningly.

The tension was so thick that there was barely room to breathe. Jean was screaming at me, in my head, but I didn't care. For that single moment, I _was_ a Yeerk, completely ambivalent to this shell human host that had nearly sealed the fate of the Yeerk race. The Captain stared at me long and hard, seemingly glaring through Jean's eyes to glimpse the real me, the intelligence behind the voice. And I could see that she did not doubt I would give the order to fire, if provoked.

"Very well," the Captain acknowledged, again signaling her troops to stand down. "Then you may leave in peace, as you came. Know that we do not wish to starve your people, but the desire to spare their lives is futile without the ability to do so without losing custody of them." She leaned in close, her voice once again taking on it's hard edge. "And rest assured that we'll be speaking again soon, once the remaining survivors in this pit of yours have been seen to." She turned on her heels and started back towards her camp, her people following in tow. Letting out a sigh, I turned in the other direction, leading my own contingent back towards the shopping center.

"That… could have gone better," I admitted. And then, finally, I turned my attention to my belligerent host. «I can't believe you were contemptible enough to try that.»

«And I can't believe,» Jean spat back, radiating hatred in our emotional link, «that you could treat me the way they do, after you've been through it yourself. I was trying to save humanity. Remember humanity? The species you're _supposed_ to be a part of?»

«I don't want to be part of a species that can't abide by basic rules of decency,» I countered. «Orkath was right about us. We cross lines that shouldn't be crossed, even during wartime.»

«You'd know all about crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed, wouldn't you, Chris?» Jean ranted. She tried to leave the comment veiled, but I had all the control over her that a Yeerk would have, and I could hear the term being bandied about in her head. _Queer_. Even unsaid, it stung.

«I didn't think you had a problem with my… with who I was,» I noted, trying to sound casual about it and failing miserably. I'm sure I sounded every bit like the hurt child I was. «Or the Yeerks, for that matter. You said my Yeerk sounded nice for supporting me. And you felt something for your own Yeerk.»

«I don't have a problem with _you_, Chris,» Jean insisted. «Or at least I didn't. And it _was_ nice that your Yeerk was supportive of you, and that mine had such meager ambitions. That doesn't mean I condone what you – or they – do. They should be suppressing their urges to control people, respectful of other peoples' free will. And by the same token you should be rising above your instincts, not letting them shackle you into an unnatural lifestyle, one that puts your health at risk and guarantees you'll never experience a truly committed, loving relationship.»

To say the least, her viewpoint pissed me off to no end. «Think what you want about me, but you're not going on a vendetta against the entire Yeerk race, not when there's so many of them trying to help us. Not while _I'm_ in your head.»

«You can't stay in my head forever,» Jean taunted. «You've got what, fourty-five minutes left in morph?»

«I don't _have_ to morph back,» I threatened, unsure myself whether or not I was sincere about it.

Jean scoffed. «I guess that makes it pretty clear where _your_ allegiance is, doesn't it.»

I was about to respond, when I suddenly realized that the other Yeerks in my contingent weren't with me anymore. I had been so distracted by the fight with Jean that I hadn't really been paying attention to the world around me.

"Hello?" I asked, calling out. We were still nearly two blocks from the grocery store, the large ingress of the Yeerk pool still everpresent on our right. I glanced downward at the rock and rubble. «Could they have fallen in?» Jean wondered, mostly to herself.

Suddenly, a large hole burrowed underneath me, and I found myself falling! Ten, twenty, thirty feet I fell, the tunnel arced at a forty-five degree angle so that I kept hitting the dirt on my way down. When I landed, I found myself in a small natural cavern, maybe forty feet in diameter. The stench of a slaughterhouse instantly wafted in my direction, such that I couldn't stop Jean's body from wretching at the scent.

"Well hi there," a familiar voice greeted, startling me. From four different crevices, two Hork-Bajir warriors emerged with Dracon beam weapons, followed by the two best sights I'd ever laid eyes on.

Eric and Chance.

Eric leveled a Dracon beam on me. "You haven't seen a Kandrona around here lately, have you, Sub-Visser?"


	25. Remembering

I must have kissed Eric for three minutes straight (no ironic puns intended).

Of course, it took some time for him to believe me. They certainly didn't take my word for it. Even as I detached myself from Jean's head and dropped to the ground, already beginning the morph back to human, they were skeptical. With good reason, I suppose – I had seen the number of mirror images that I had back at the Yeerk pool. It was strange and a little creepy to think about where my DNA might be swimming around at this point.

But morphing has very specific limitations, one of which being the inability to go straight from one morph to another. So I began to morph to Peregrine Falcon, the first morph my body had ever done (God, was that only two months ago?), although this was the first time I was performing the morph by my own will. The feather pattern barely appeared across my body before Eric was all over me, hugging me like… well, like a boy who'd gotten his lover back from the dead.

And so help me, I didn't even care what my brother might be thinking, watching his little sibling french kiss another boy. I hadn't dared to hope that I could ever hold him again, much less as a free human being.

"Heh," Eric remarked with a wide smirk, finally breaking contact. "So that's what it's like."

"Mmm?" I asked curiously, cocking an eyebrow.

Eric tapped the top of his head. "Kissing someone with a Yeerk in your brain," he said. "It was like… I dunno, like a three-way kiss or something. Weird, but great."

"You're a Controller?" I asked, surprised but oddly not even remotely disturbed by it anymore.

Eric offered a confirming nod, his smile widening. I had a sneaking suspicion that the look in the eyes was Eric's and the smile was the Yeerk's.

"And you don't think you should perhaps introduce me to who else I'm kissing?" I quipped, my own smile broadening.

"Ewell Five-Nine-Three of the Sulp Niar pool," Eric's Yeerk offered in greeting, dipping Eric's body into an exaggerated bow. Then Eric straightened the body and rolled his own eyes at his Yeerk's flippancy. It was strange, how there was no doubt in my mind who was doing what at any given time in there. I could just… tell, somehow.

Shamefully, it was only then that I recalled my own brother. "And I suppose you're Delvin Two-Two-Four?" I asked, bringing him into a tight, familial embrace.

Chance grinned, shaking his head. "Nope. No one in here but me."

"Hmph," some old man murmured, watching the scene from behind Eric and Chance. There were two Hork-Bajir there as well, and a woman in the process of coming out of a Taxxon morph. Or was it a Taxxon morphing to human? I wasn't sure.

"And…" I looked at him expectantly.

"And what?" Chance asked curiously.

I jerked my thumb back towards Eric. "No commentary? No telling me I'm gross, no witty joke, no reaction whatsoever?"

Chance smiled, putting his arm around me. "Chris, aliens are real. I was rounded onto a train, survived a massive explosion by riding in an alien spacecraft, watched people turn into animals and bug-aliens and a slug fall out of a woman's ear and turn into the brother I spent the last day mourning over. Compared to all that, where you choose to stick your tongue isn't even a blip on the radar." I felt a surge of affection for my older brother. We'd ripped on each other for years, of course, but the underlying assumption was always that we loved and cared for each other. Still, it was a rare moment to hear him actually confirm it.

But brothers don't really do mushy for any extended period of time, and I wasn't about to let his moment of weakness pass. "You mourned for me?" I asked incredulously, smirking.

Chance rolled his eyes. "I suppose I should be shocked that you could actually get _anyone_ to kiss you," he teased, trying to regain the advantage.

I wasn't to be deterred. I turned to Eric. "Mourned?" I asked him.

It was Ewell who nodded Eric's head. "Cried like a baby," host and Controller said in unison.

It was a bit of a climb to get out of the crevice that Marbella Four-One-Three, the human-Controller with the Taxxon morph, had made for us. She was mildly insulted when I asked whether her natural form was human or Taxxon.

"As if a Taxxon could even handle morphing," she said with an air of distaste, like she wanted to spit on the ground. There was a certain cold ruthlessness to the way she said it, that made me think perhaps she was within her host involuntarily, but I let the thought pass for the moment. After all, she was working with us well enough.

The old man, Maylis Three-Nine-Eight, was _definitely_ an involuntary Controller, or so he, himself, would claim with an almost tireless boredom as they climbed. "Evan Hoburn states that it has been one day, fourteen hours and twelve minutes and that I am still not welcome in his body."

"Why don't you just let him say it himself?" I asked, after hearing the bland declaration for the fourth or fifth time.

Maylis twisted Evan's lips into a sneer. "And rob him of his vindication? Never. Let the crotchety old fool whine about the merciless Yeerk." It seemed a contemptible statement, but there was something about the way the Yeerk said it, especially the strain he put on the word 'merciless' as he struggled with Evan's frail body to pull himself a little further up the trail. I found myself wondering how much of the pain he was deliberately shielding his host from, blocking the signals with his own nerve endings.

Eventually we made it to a half-destroyed stairwell, what was left of one of the collapsed Yeerk pool entrances. It curved up into the janitor's closet of a mostly intact elementary school.

"Hmph," Eric murmured, looking around at fingerpaintings hanging on the wall, most at least partially singed or covered in ash. "Nap time, cookies and milk and an alien invader wrapped around your brain. The Yeerks really sunk to some pretty deep lows." Then, oddly, "he" answered himself, Ewell speaking through his voice to all of us. "Yes, my people have done many contemptible things on this planet. Apologies seem insufficient."

"It's a start," Evan replied, his face looking surprised for a moment before Maylis re-asserted control, straightening it out. "What?" the Yeerk protested, looking at our collective stares.

"I don't think the floor over here is very stable," I pointed out, stepping along the edge of the corridor. "Careful."

Jek Tynith, the non-Controller Hork-Bajir in the group, grabbed a random piece of art off the wall. "Jek find map," he declared triumphantly, holding it out to me. "Sub-Visser want map?" he suggested helpfully.

I offered him a meek smile, taking the drawing. Indeed, it had crayon drawings of the school and two houses around it, with stick figure people coming and going. "Ahhh, yes. I see which way now. Thanks, Jek." Jek craned his head upward, beaming from the praise.

"We crawled in through the window in the boys' bathroom," Chance said, pointing down the hall to the left. "Or, well… 'window' probably isn't the word. 'Big gaping hole in the wall' probably covers it better."

Our every footstep made the structure groan in response, and several times, bits of the ceiling and the walls would fall in protest, but eventually we made our way to the hole and out into the early evening sky. We were directly due west from Ground Zero… putting the two Controller camps on either side of us. Already, they were beginning to merge, small convoys travelling from the northwest section travelled towards the command post I had left, in the southwest.

I sighed. This is the part I didn't want to think about. "Okay," I said, turning around and addressing the group. "We're going to need to get the Kandrona, before the Visser's Blade ship arrives. Get it to Yeerk resistance forces." I stepped right up to Jean, glaring at her in the eyes. "So… are you going to do this peacefully, or do I have to have them hold you down?"

Jean's only response was a glare of cold steel, and I wondered for a moment if perhaps she hated me more than she ever had any Yeerk. Then the cold irony that, very soon, I would know exactly how she felt, struck me, a thought that brought a sad kind of smile to my lips.

"What… why would we have to hold her?" Ewell asked, confused.

"Her agenda's not the same as ours," I explained to Eric's Yeerk. "She'd rather see every Yeerk on this planet starve than risk the Kandrona falling back into the hands of the conquest-hungry factions amongst your people." I gestured towards her. "The Yeerks think she's Visser Eighty-Three's host. It has to be her in command over there."

I could tell it was Eric, not Ewell, who got it, and replied incredulously, "You're going to _re-infest_ her? Against her will?"

I nodded solemnly. "Only way."

"No it's not," Maylis/Evan pointed out. "You're morph-capable, you could simply acquire her."

"And do what with the original?" I asked incredulously, gesturing at the woman in front of me. I hated putting it like that, hated talking about her like she was just an object, a host body. But what I intended to do was as detestable to me as anyone else, and as much as I hated to admit it, talking about her like an object made it a little easier for me.

Besides, it pissed her off, and I was angry enough at her to consider that a bonus. "Who is it you think I'm going to run to, Chris?" She gestured at the desolation around us.

I shrugged. "All I know is, I don't want to see anyone else die," I said simply. "Yeerk, human, Hork-Bajir, _anyone_. And that's not your agenda. I know you're worried about what they could do to your son-"

"You don't know a _thing_, Chris," Jean protested angrily.

I shrugged, stating what I'd thought before. "Well, I suppose as soon as I'm in there I'll know a lot better." I started to morph to Yeerk.

The silence was dreadful. No one seemed to so much as breath as I went through the changes, as the smily coating covered my skin and the Yeerk antennae shot out of my ears before shifting upward on my body. As I started to shrink, I sent a thought speak message to Eric. «I need you to pick me up, put me in.»

Of course, Eric wasn't in morph, so he couldn't respond telepathically. And there was a delay of several seconds, enough that I started to wonder if perhaps his objections were stronger than I'd thought. But soon I felt the pressure of a hand wrapping itself around me, and I felt the impossible sensation of being lifted several thousand times my own height. And then, finally, the faint smell of neural activity in a canyon ahead, my Yeerk instincts drawn to it like a moth to a flame. I slid my way into the neural cavity and wrapped myself around a human brain, as I'd now done almost half a dozen times. Strange, how familiar the sensation had become. Familiar and… pleasant, warm.

I was unprepared for the assault of memory as it hit me. Jean waited until I was in that serene, comfortable moment of total control before hitting me not with a string of insults, or a retort, but a powerful rush of memory and emotion so real that I felt I was trapped in the moment.

I was sitting in a Lexus, screaming in the back of my own mind. My life had been upheaved, but I still didn't understand it all yet. I had been looking at lawn mowers just an hour earlier, whining to my husband about how our younger son never had time for us anymore, when my older son approached with one of the clerks, who assured me that there was a special mower on sale in the warehouse that would be perfect for us. Tom said he'd already seen it, and he was so eager, so… animated about it, that I couldn't refuse to at least take a look at it. It was so rare to see him happy about anything other than the Sharing.

The next thing I knew, someone had hit me over the head, and when I awoke, I found that I couldn't move my hands or legs. That someone… some_thing_… was moving them instead. My husband was already behind the driver's seat. Driving too fast, talking on Tom's cell phone. I was sure it was a dream – Steve _never_ talked on the cell phone when he drove. He had just confiscated it from Tom on the way to the store, because he had let Tom drive and Tom was doing it.

"They've already been to the cousin's, Sub-Visser," I heard him say, handing the cell phone back towards Tom. "It had been ransacked, evacuated."

"Clever kids," Tom noted, a sneer in his voice that sounded far too malicious to be my little boy. "Well, we're one step ahead of them now, aren't we?"

«What on Earth is going on?» I wondered, still trying desperately to speak, finding myself unable to.

Then, oddly, I heard laughter of a sort. Laughter in my own head. «Not much, really,» a voice replied. «We're going to kill your son, that's all.»

Steve took the car on an erratic turn towards the right. We were pulling up to our street.

Suddenly, a bird dove past us! A big, pretty bird with a red tail.

"Andal…!" Tom started to shout, and then stopped, cutting himself off, correcting himself. "I mean, morphed human!"

I had no idea what that meant, but I felt an anger and rage boil up in me all the same. Anger I was sure was not my own. My finger pushed the button to lower the window, and I drew some kind of a weapon – a gun! – from my purse, aiming it at the bird.

Tssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!

The neighbor's birdbath exploded, and the bird reeled, his flight erratic. Apparently I'd come very close to hitting him.

My hand took aim again, but Tom reached upward and slapped it out of my hand. "Stop, you fool!" he cursed. "You want the whole neighborhood to see alien ray guns going off?"

"YEERK! GET OUT OF ME!" Steve bellowed, suddenly slamming on the gas, going past our house, seemingly as far away as he could get us. I could make out Jake standing in the driveway, our travelling luggage stacked behind him, his old basketball rolling ominously down the drive and into the road, where an SUV nearly collided with it.

Suddenly Steve's face hardened and he jerked the wheel, spinning the car into a controlled stop. Gravel sprayed over the neighbor's yard. The car was now pointed directly at Jake.

Steve was staring angrily at our younger son, revving the engine. He intended to run our baby over!

But Jake was staring back just as angrily. Staring and… and shrinking. Feathers were beginning to sprout from his body, and his mouth seemed to be stretching out.

And I could hear his voice, in my head. His voice, strong, firm, barely a whisper, but that whisper contained more subtle strength than even I, his mother, his greatest cheerleader in life, had ever given him credit for. «This is for them,» the voice said. «For my real family. To give them hope and, finally, the truth. And for their Yeerk captors. To give them warning.»

And from somewhere inside of myself, in that strange place where the anger and the rage had come from, in the place that I was sure was the source of the puppetmaster pulling my strings, I felt pure, unbridled fear.

The memory ended, and after a moment, I regained my sense of self. I was Chris, a human in Yeerk morph, not Jean. Not Jean. She was simply the host body I was controlling.

But with the memory she had shared, she was reminding me. Reminding me that she wasn't just any human, and that there would be consequences for me, terrible consequences, when Jake discovered what I was putting her through.

At least I assumed that was the message. After that onslaught, I at least felt chastised enough not to go peeking at her thoughts to see for myself if that's what she meant. And of course, I was unable to hide my emotions from her – she could sense that she had shaken me. «Are you really sure they're worth it?» she asked me snidely.

«Do I?» I asked her. And then I answered her the only way I could – with a shared memory.

It was from just a week ago.

_«Orkath, I'm scared,» I admitted. «Maybe I shouldn't room up with him this time.»_

_«It'll be better if you do,» Orkath comforted. «Even if it's bad… not knowing is hurting you more.» Out loud, he said, "Do me a favor, Ewell… when we go onto the pier, tell them you're morph-capable involuntary."_

_Eric… Ewell seemed shocked. "Sub-Visser?" he questioned. "I'm not morph-capable, I…"_

_Orkath held up my hand. "I know you're not, but I've been under a lot of stress lately and, between you and me, I need to batter my host a little bit. It'll be easier going through the next few days if he's whining and moaning about time spent with your host in the cage."_

_Eric's face looked grim as he nodded. "Yes, Sub-Visser," he acknowledged, falling into step beside us as we headed for the Yeerk pool entrance. Orkath started to steal glances at him, maybe because he still felt my attraction to Eric, or maybe because he was trying to be nice to me. I remembered how he used to tease me – it felt like so long ago – by looking at Eric briefly and then looking away just when I started to feel that romance excitement. Now, he was taking good, long, hard looks, and I couldn't have been more depressed, the uncertainty of how Eric was adjusting to life as a Controller eating away at me. «Stop, please,» I murmured, and Orkath quietly obeyed, turning my eyes back towards the stairs and the sludgy pool below._

_The stares hadn't gone unnoticed, though. "Something wrong, Sub-Visser?" Eric/Ewell asked, trying not to sound intimidated._

_Orkath said the first thing that came to his mind. "Not you, Ewell. I was thinking about the group your host is in… Civil Air Patrol, was it?"_

"_Yes, Sub-Visser," Ewell agreed. "Their squadron was mobilized briefly on the morning after the National Guard attacks, turning spectators away from the battle scenes."_

_Orkath nodded my head. "Do we have any people in command-level positions?"_

_Ewell shrugged. "My own host himself commands a flight of cadets, mostly non-Controllers. I believe a couple of the adults, the 'Senior members,' are also our people."_

_Orkath rubbed my chin as we stepped onto the infestation pier. "We may be able to use that to our advantage," he said. Walking up to the Hork-Bajir guards, he declared, "Morph-capable involuntary. Ramonite box seven."_

_«Well,» Orkath said, «Time to eat. I'm starving. Good luck with Eric.»_

_Perhaps because I understood it to be a religious phrase, I felt the urge to wish my Yeerk well as he left my body. «May the light of the Kandrona shine on you, Orkath One-Seven-Two.»_

_As he slipped out, the Yeerk replied, «And may the Lord be with you, Christopher Windward.»_

I was still being respectful of Jean's thoughts, but I couldn't help but notice her emotions. And her view of the memory, her direct contact with my mind and feelings at the time, was undoubtedly all the reply she needed.

Still, I said it anyway. «Yeah, they're worth it.»


	26. Spiraling

"Not bad."

I grabbed at one of the straps holding the Kandrona in place. Under my orders, a team had loaded it in the back of the grocery store's cold storage supply truck. The meat hooks came in handy, seemingly locking the giant device rather firmly in place, but I wasn't taking any chances, so I ordered bungee cords and straps all along the side edges, too. A few of the Controllers were mildly suspicious, given the Blade Ship's impending arrival, but totalitarian empires are nothing if not efficient harbingers of fear-based persuasion. A few strongly toned "are you /questioning/ my orders" responses were all it took to keep the rabble in line.

"Does it have to be so cold?" Eric wondered, wrapping his arms around himself for effect.

I patted the alien device. "She gets very hot when she's active," I explained. "The Visser is likely to try heat tracing when he gets here and it's not here." I glanced back at him. "You sure about this 'Erek King' fellow?"

Eric nodded. "Illim said if he and Mister Tidwell were ever discovered or executed, everyone in the resistance should contact this 'Erek' for regrouping. It's a fair bet that's where any resistance survivors will be."

The clattering of the ramp alerted us to Chance and Jek coming up it. Jek was holding one of those mini pianos they sell in grocery toy sections and tapping each key giddily, like it was the greatest thing in the universe. Chance was holding five strands of rope and cloth, along with a cell phone, which he placed on the back edge. "Pay as you go, got it off the shelf. Our number's written on it. You sure cell phones are going to keep working? I mean, they're aliens, can't they just jam it?"

I shrugged. "Visser One's not really the type to worry much about what petty humans say to each other." I put my hands behind my back, obligingly allowing Chance to start binding them.

"I wish you'd just come with us," Chance complained, trying to sound mostly nonchalant and failing miserably, which made me smile. It was nice that my brother was worried about me.

I shook my head. "Remember, be nice to her, but don't let her see where this Erek's hideout is. I'm hoping the Animorphs will see my side of this thing, but they've been fighting the Yeerks for a long time, so I want to be able to return her to Jake /without/ giving away the location of the Kandrona."

I tilted my head back so that Chance could easily gag my mouth. «Well, this is it,» I told my host. «Thanks for the hospitality. Sorry about our little disagreements, but we're still mostly on the same side, y'know.»

«You're a stupid boy,» Jean responded, seething. «You could end the Yeerk threat right now by destroying this thing.»

«Jean,» I replied, still desperate to reach her, «Two days ago we saved each other's lives. You told me 'think', remember? You knew that panicking was going to get us killed, so you got me to stop and see the big picture and because you did we were able to take shelter with this thing in time.»

«So?»

«So that's all I'm doing now, Jean,» I insisted. «Thinking. We've got a much better chance getting the Yeerks to work against themselves than we do pissing them all off and uniting them against us.»

She was hardly convinced. «They can't unite against us if they're starved to death, Chris. Because of you, the Yeerks may still have a chance to reclaim their technology. Because of you, my son's efforts might be in vein.»

«Yeah, well… we'll see if your son agrees. I'll be sure to say 'hi' for you.» With that, I disconnected myself from Jean's nerve endings and squirmed my Yeerk body out of her brain. Chance was ready to catch me, and I could feel his hands gently lowering me to the ground as I started demorphing.

Half a day, I had now done nothing but constantly morph in and out of the Yeerk form. It felt like I had walked the proverbial mile in their shoes, and I wondered if Jean wasn't right somehow, if maybe my last experiences with Orkath and my time spent as a Yeerk was blinding me to hard truths. But it wasn't something I pondered too heavily – I was committed now. If it was a mistake, it was too far in to call it back now.

Besides which, I was /damned/ tired. I would have given anything for just an hour of sleep at that moment. I was running more on autopilot than anything else.

I took the cell phone and we sealed up the truck, the Kandrona and Jean hidden securely inside it. Chance and the policeman Controller got into the cabin, and they took off towards the southern edge of town, where the King hideout was supposed to be.

I patted Eric on the back. "Just you and me, now, love."

Eric grinned, jerking his thumb northward. "And about three hundred Yeerks." I followed his pointing, where, sure enough, the Yeerkish rescue contingent was following the Visser's orders and marching to the supermarket to merge with our group.

I sighed. "I don't want to morph yet."

"Well, you can't be seen in your natural body," Ewell remarked from inside Eric's head. "Most people know you were the Sub-Visser's old host. They'll kill you."

With a grim nod, I closed my eyes and focused on one of the dozen human morphs I had floating around in my system. I picked the out-of-shape computer tech from the camping trip because the changes would be mild and less exhausting, and because even though his body felt lazy and lead-weighted, he was also a generally optimistic person, and I needed a little of that uplifting instinct to get me through. I felt myself get a little taller, and the pores on my face open up and shoot out hair follicles like a Chia Pet on steroids. My stomach grew out like a baby was growing in there as fat cells nestled themselves in between the muscles. I found that interesting, because it made me ponder how the Andalite technology did it's work. The original computer tech's dental hygiene was horrible, his teeth were damaged and broken all along his mouth. When I morphed him, though, I got the fresh DNA minus the "injuries" that his teeth had suffered, leaving me with a set of perfect pearly whites. I'd actually had to be careful about kissing his wife too passionately, for fear that she might notice the teeth had become suddenly perfect. (Hey, for one, it was Orkath driving, and for two, any good undercover agent will tell you you do /whatever/ it takes to keep your cover. You can't afford to let anything be too sacred.)

Yet the fat cells were cloned perfectly. I could understand that overeating was a genetic trait, just like being too lazy to take care of teeth probably is, but why were the /effects/ of the overeating part of the morph? Why did I have the same beer belly that the original had? And was I only thinking this way because I was now thinking with a computer tech's instincts, approaching it all like a puzzle to be solved?

"I'm going to write a book when all this is over," I told Eric, marveling for a moment at the contrast between the deep, booming male voice I was hearing come out of myself and Jean's voice, which I'd been using all day. "_The Philosophy of Morphing_. I bet it sells big."

Eric gestured towards the store. "Tell you what, you've probably got an hour before the Blade ship arrives. Why don't you let me take this, use that morph to get a power nap."

"I love you," I replied, giving Eric a quick kiss.

Eric wrinkled his nose. "Ugh. Beard." He pushed at my frame. "Go, go, sleep."

With a yawn, I scuttled myself upstairs, suddenly feeling a surge of loneliness. I wanted to go over the plan one more time but I suddenly realized that there was no one in my head, and I wasn't in anyone else's head, so there was nobody to bounce it off of. I think it was the first time I was truly alone in quite awhile.

And then I made the mistake of looking out the supermarket window. Down into the sinkhole that used to be the Yeerk pool.

I cried.

Even the technician's optimistic instincts weren't enough to stop the flood of grief from hitting me all at once. I cried for all the people who died down there, and for Cassie, who had to endure the stain of setting it up on her conscience. I cried for Chance and everyone who'd been cattleherded out of their homes in the last few days. I cried for my mother, who, if she wasn't dead already, was living out there somewhere with no idea that either of her sons was alive. I cried for Jake, who didn't know if his parents or brother were okay, and for Jean, and for all the completely oblivious humans still on the planet and all the Hork-Bajir and the Yeerks and everyone in the entire universe, especially myself. I cried until I had no tears left to cry, and let my grief and pain carry me off to sleep.

* * *

_**It was over a day before I was given a host body. It was a man in the National Guard who'd been captured trying to escape from one of the train stations during the battle for the pool. **_

_**Accessing his memories brought me up to speed quickly. I saw that the explosion I'd felt had been a train full of explosives jackknifing into the pool. I saw the man's apprehension as he waited in a cell for one of the Yeerks rescued from the pool to be well enough to infest him.**_

_**The host heard two Yeerks talking about how lucky I was, how I had been found outside the pool, badly charred. They had no idea how I had survived. I had a guess – from the sensations I'd felt, I guessed that I was out of the direct blast zone, probably thrown under a heat resistant metal, and I was still in the process of demorphing, so the most severe of my injuries were probably repaired by the morphing process. Still, it was eerie to think of how close I'd come to death. **_

"_**Who are you?" a human-Controller girl with a clipboard asked, once I'd gotten control of the man.**_

_**I groaned slightly. I wasn't sure if it was the pain in my host's arm or the leftover pains in the synapses of my natural body. "I'm Orkath One-Seven-Two," I told her. "Sub-Visser Eighty-Three."**_

_**The Yeerk girl blinked. "That's impossible."**_

"_**Why?" I asked.**_

"_**Because our camp was just ordered to march south and join up with… well, you."**_


	27. Orkath the Third

Tseeeew! The car vaporized and the human soldiers behind it ran to find a different cover. My new host was quite the car fanatic, so I had instantly identified that the car was a classic 1966 Ford Mustang – a "machine of beauty, Ill befitting such a casual end". But I had no time to concern myself with that.

Suddenly, machine gun fire to my left, and two Hork-Bajir warriors on my left flank fell to the ground, twitching. One was quite obviously faking it – I'd seen Hork Bajir cut into their own brains, and their regenerative capabilities were legend. But many of the humans fighting us were former hosts, and they'd evidently been paying attention during briefings on Hork-Bajir anatomy. The other Hork-Bajir had had both hearts pierced by the kind of precision sharpshooting that could only have come from a professional soldier. Ex-Navy SEAL, specifically, or at least my host was of that opinion. Being a National Guardsman, he was familiar with many different branches of the human military, and his brain was sharp enough to extrapolate educated guesses based on the subtle details in our environment.

This was a very good skill to have in the middle of a war zone.

BOOM! The Honda Civic to our right exploded, and the shrapnel buried itself in several human-Controllers. But the trigger man had left himself exposed for a second too long to enjoy his handiwork, and with split-second precision, I made him pay for his curiosity with his life.

TSEEEW!

I was miserable.

Exas One-Oh-Six had come personally to verify my identity. I was half-tempted to just pretend I'd lied, claim some other Yeerk name as my own, but I was too much of a coward to do so. I wasn't afraid of dying, but I didn't think I could pull off a fake Yeerk identity properly enough to convince them that I wasn't lying a second time, which might lead to violent interrogations that would likely have broken me anyway. Besides, the deed was done - I had inadvertently blown Chris' cover, or least I assumed it was Chris, even when they said that the host body claiming to be me was an adult female. That sort of detail was irrelevant when dealing with a morph-capable being anyway. Getting myself killed wasn't going to save him from being questioned.

So I confirmed that I was Orkath, confident that my knowledge of Exas' intent to double-cross the Visser would keep me safe enough around him, as long as I toed the line. But toeing the line in this case meant using my new host as a foot soldier to fight a suddenly very open, shooting war. The humans on the other side of the encampment had apparently learned of our orders to merge and secure the Kandrona, and had laid siege for us. I had no choice but to fight alongside my brother Yeerks in order to survive.

It was tragically ironic, if I stopped to think about it. Three months ago this would have been my idea of a very good dream – a Sub-Visser with a proper warrior host, free of the need to pretend to be human, advancing the cause of my species. Now it almost felt like I wasn't really a Yeerk. The human host beneath me was belligerent, and I was controlling him against his will, but instead of reveling in my success and putting him down, I was apologetic and remorseful. It was a matter of self-preservation. I couldn't just free him and hide in the Yeerk Pool – there_ was no Yeerk Pool._ And if I didn't defend myself against his fellow humans, they'd surely kill me.

I took comfort from the fact that, on some level, my host understood. I could see his thoughts clearly that he did. But he wanted to stay mad at me anyway, and I was "human" enough in my thinking now that I could understand why. Because it's his "game face". Like all human anger, his was merely a cover for fear, in this case fear that I'd never be able to let him go or he'd die while under my control. I didn't bother to comment on my insight, though – I doubt it would have impressed him.

When we arrived at the Supermarket that was base camp for the Yeerks there, we'd been prepared to take Chris immediately into custody. I was apprehensive to say the least, but I needn't have bothered. Chris and the Kandrona were both long gone, and no one who remained could say more than that it was loaded onto a truck headed south. Exas took command of the remaining Yeerk forces and ordered them to pull back into a tight perimeter around the supermarket, and then pulled me into the upstairs management office.

"That body suits you, Orkath," he commented, leaning over some kind of heating plate and preparing hot water for a drink. The notion seemed absurd to me, as though he'd actually just brought us up for tea and crumpets. "No more whimpering gay child, yes?"

I shrugged. "A body's a body, not much difference," I replied noncommittally.

Exas twisted Tom's face into a sneer. "Spoken like a true Yeerk," he declared with an approving nod, as though I'd passed some kind of a test. He leaned in closer and whispered, "Things are going to start happening quickly now. When the Visser gets here and sees that there's no Kandrona, he's going to go into one of his tantrums, the kind that make him susceptible to a well-timed suggestion."

"If one can survive to make it," I remarked tersely.

Exas laughed. "I've made a career of knowing how to survive the Visser's moods. You just follow my lead and everything will go smoothly." After a moment's hesitation, he leaned in close to my face. "You DO want things to go smoothly, don't you, brother?"

I kept his gaze, fully aware that to do otherwise would be to die right here. "Absolutely."

"Good," Exas replied, patting me on the shoulder. He pulled his eyes away from mine and looked down at the supermarket floor below, and the surreal scene of Hork-Bajir huddled with survival blankets and eating cans of SPAM, which apparently tasted enough like tree bark to satisfy them for a time. "In a way," he mused, "the theft of the Kandrona is perfect. It's an excuse to land the Pool ship, which is essential to my plan."

"LAND the pool ship?" I repeated, shocked at the notion. "I don't think any prior campaign has ever done that."

"Things have never been this desperate," Exas mock-whined, placing an edge of sarcasm in Tom's voice. "Remember that report regarding the Andalite fleet? You're going to get it over our Z-Space transponder in a few minutes, and hand it to me during my conversation with the Visser." The unmistakable sound of the approaching Blade Ship cut off his last few words. "Speaking of." He gestured towards the manager's desk, where a Z-Space Transponder had already been set up. "Go sit over there, get ready. I'll give you a glance when it's time for you to fake getting the report. Make sure you pretend to jot it down and hand it to me – if you deliver the report verbally, the Visser will go into one of his 'shoot the messenger' tantrums."

I went to the station he pointed at and before long, Visser One arrived in his human morph, rapidly demorphing to Andalite as he berated Exas for the loss of the Kandrona. Watching Tom work with the Visser, I couldn't help but admire the cunning and tenacity that the human-Controller showed. Every subtle word, every shift of body language, seemed designed with it's effect on the Visser in mind. How much of that skill, I wondered, had been inherited from his human host? Was Tom possibly as tactically gifted as his younger brother apparently was?

I wasn't able to ponder it long, because Tom gave me the nod and I quickly started faking a conversation into the Z-Space transponder. As I did so, I couldn't help wondering to myself – why did Tom want the Pool ship on the ground? And where was Chris in all this? Did he still know I was alive? Was he searching for me? Did he even miss me, or was he glad that I was gone?

«Man, stop pining over whoever you're in love with and concentrate before you get us killed,» my new host complained. Embarassingly, I had forgotten he was there.

«Umm, right. Sorry,» I murmured, returning to the task of writing fake notes. There would be time to worry about Chris later – I hoped. But now I had another question to ponder. Was my new host right? Was I actually in love with a human?


	28. Accelerating

_Author's Note__: Wow. I've officially been working on this story for ten years now (this is why I'm not a professional writer. Me and deadlines never get along.) I really need to get my butt in gear, don't I? I've dreamed of the end of this story, and the beginning of it's post-#54 sequel, for so long now, but getting there has always been tricky because of the book timeline and keeping faithful to the events going on in the "background" along with all the events I've personally wanted to see added to the series. By the way, for anyone who's interested in the parallels, here's the lineup so far:_

_Chapter 1-3: Post #50.  
Chapter 4-7: #51.  
Chapter 8-12: In between #51 and #52.  
Chapter 13-21: #52.  
Chapter 22-28: In between #52 and #53._

The next chapter, 29, begins our movement into #53, which means endgame's around the corner. To be totally honest, I'd have loved to write a few more chapters of stuff before we got into #53, because that's an area with a lot of stories to be told. But by supreme irony, the Yeerks' feeding cycle is problematic for me as an author, because that time span HAS to be exactly 2.5 days, and no matter who's perspective I write from, I've been keeping the flow of time constant. There's no way the Pool Ship can land anytime after that, because the Yeerks would all starve to death.

_The format of this chapter, consequently, is wiiiiiiiidely different from what has come before. It is a series of short drabbles happening all over the battlefield (and beyond) that outline the events leading up to the pool ship's arrival. None of them are identified, on purpose, although a perceptive reader might be able to figure out who's who. Call it artistic license, not giving you a breath as I rapid-jump from character to character should convey the sense of chaos I'm looking for_.

* * *

"What is going ON out there?" I snapped, hoping the annoyance in my tone would convey my displeasure adequately. The person on the other end was going through the motions of sounding contrite and embarrassed, but I could tell something was off about it. I wasn't the smartest person in the world, I knew that, but I had gotten far in life by being one of the shrewdest. I knew how to play the game, and I knew I was being played.

The voice sighed. "I wish I could explain it, sir. All I can tell you is that the media's blowing it all out of proportion."

"An entire city's downtown area is now a sinkhole, Lieutenant Governor Parnell. I don't see how that CAN be blown out of proportion. I'm absolutely astonished that it's not national news yet." Astonished and a little suspicious, but I wasn't about to tell him that, and his silence on the point was all too telling. "And where, pray tell, is the Governor when all this is going on?"

At that, the first hint of a smile in that voice. "Oh, she's in a secure location," he replied. "SOP for emergencies, as you well know." Something about the way he said it was quite ominous.

"I want to be talking to her by nightfall," I ordered. "See to it that it happens." I didn't wait for confirmation, I hung up immediately. Anyway, I was pretty sure he would do it or his resignation would be front page news the next day.

I sighed and picked up the phone again. "Get me General Doubleday. I need his company for a domestic mission."

* * *

"We've got to get out of here," I warned, an urgency in my whispered tone.

The adorable boy, currently a less-than-adorable bearded man, blinked at me. "Close to my morph time?" he asked.

I nodded. "But that's not the problem. The Yeerks are here. They're looking for you, and they know you're not one of them."

Ten minutes later, we were two birds of prey enjoying the night sky.

«So what now?» I asked him.

He was silent a moment. «I guess we go to Erek's after all. We should be where the Kandrona is. Hon, are you sure we were compromised?»

«Believe me, they were dead sure you weren't a Yeerk,» I responded. He didn't push the issue, and I felt a pang of guilt. I knew I probably should have told him how I was so sure, but I didn't know how to interpret it. Didn't know for sure if it was just another layer of double-agent shenanigans or an actual, legitimate betrayal.

Better to let him remain ignorant so he can focus on what he needs to. Better to figure such things out after the war.

* * *

The human-Controller's head hit the floor and rolled off the deckplating. He had assured me that human children would not be ruthless enough to detonate a bomb in their own hometown.

Earth would truly have been mine a long time ago were it not for my imbecilic advisors. Truly, I would have to learn not to be so blindly trusting of their advice.

«Let's finish the job for them. I want the entire town incinerated before the Pool ship lands.»

* * *

So hungry.

So desperately hungry, all the time. In my sleep, in my dreams, I still can't help but constantly be on the lookout for new meat to tear into. It infects my thoughts, my deeds… my very soul.

Even now, digging, constantly eating at the soil in front of me, I cannot focus on what I really want to think about, which is this thing the Redmeats (generally it was hard to think of them as 'humans', when the habit in our native tongue was simply to name each species we encountered after the color or texture of it's blood) have called 'Music'.

I'd first heard it while doing a shift with a human-Controller on board a Bug Fighter, and I'd since been catching little bits of it on the few spare moments I could find. I was particularly fond, of course, of the songs that involved food and eating, but I couldn't replicate many of the sounds with my own guttural voice.

The last time I had tried, two of my Yeerk allies, human and Hork-Bajir Controllers, taunted me.

"Hah! Look at that, Sebrus. I think that Taxxon is trying to /sing/!" the human-Controller cried gleefully, shaking his head.

The Hork-Bajir Controller snorted, before closing it's eyes and shrinking, human skin rippling across it's snake-like features.

"Pity he can't morph to human like you, ey? Perhaps he'd get a better singing voice out of it!"

I ignored them, burrowing deeply into the rock. But in my head, I found the taunt prophetic. _Soon I WILL morph,Yeerk, _ I thought, _and when the Animorphs grant me that power, things will change between us…_

* * *

My human host was dying. I suppose I could have saved myself, disengaged from her, but there would be no place to go on this dismal battlefield. I wasn't one of those lucky Yeerks who could morph – my choices were to leave her and wait to be stepped on, or die with her. I decided that we might as well meet our fate together.

I owed her that much.

«I'm so sorry,» I told her. In death, at least, I could finally say what a loyal Yeerk warrior never has any business saying. «I'm sorry for everything I said, everything I did… the people I recruited… this whole blasted war. I'm sorry for it all.»

The dying human was surprised by my rant. In three years of infesting her, I had never even so much as spoken to her directly, even once. I couldn't. I could never let her know how much it was eating me up inside, Controlling her as I had been. She had her suspicions, of course – and, being a Yeerk, I was painfully aware of every moment when she suspected my regret over my duties – but she never asked me directly.

As life slipped away from her, indeed from both of us, she gave me a last gift. She sent me the thought I had been fantasizing about hearing for three years.

«I forgive you.»

* * *

"I still don't understand, Norman. You've always said you HATED this stuff."

"Trust me, Margaret, it was never hatred. If anything I was afraid that I loved it too much."

"Well, you've clearly embraced it now. Six /cases/… but couldn't we have had some Raisin and Spice? Why all Maple and Ginger?"

* * *

«This is kinda neat, I've never been to space.»

I smirked with my host's mouth. I knew he was worried about his aunt and uncle, and that his boyish chatter was just a cover for that, but I enjoyed the undercurrent of legitimate enjoyment he was feeling at seeing his home planet through the window of the Bug Fighter.

«Yes, well… if you want to see /Earth/ again, I need to concentrate on docking with the Pool ship.»

I had to sit squat on my host's legs to reach the controls. The Hork-Bajir next to me was teasing me about it.

"Gyelin hagra let you grub shacks fly anyway."

My host winced at the term 'grub shacks'. It was a derogatory term recently employed in our language for a Yeerk with a youthful or immature host. Of course, ageism is just one of the many bad habits my people have picked up from humans since the Yeerk invasion of Earth began.

To the Hork-Bajir, I replied, "I happen to be a Delta-class pilot, /thank/ you. Let's see you fly this ship half as well." To my host, I was more gentle. «Don't let it get to you, Tyler. I'd choose you for company any day.»

I felt my host swell with pride. «Thanks, Urbosh.»

* * *

I shuddered with the pain, pain I couldn't quite feel fully myself. I felt my hands struggle against the bonds tying them to the chair.

"Got another one, Corporal," someone called, looking at me struggling. "The Yeerk in his head is dying."

«Told you I'd win,» I gloated. «Told you I'd see freedom again! HAH!»

The Yeerk was too exhausted and wracked with pain to retort. «Yeah… 'booyah',» he murmured, before crawling out of me and dropping to the floor, where my bunkmate's shoe put him out of his misery forever.

"One less slug in the world. Welcome back, Private Harris."

* * *

I watched in disbelief as my mom poured cereal into three bowls. One full wall of our kitchen was missing, and the stove was still a smoldering wreck, but it was as if she couldn't even see the damage.

"I said I'm going," I repeated, louder, clutching onto Ashley's little hand. Oddly, she wasn't crying. Even at six, she was taking this a hell of a lot better than mom was.

"You can't go to school without /breakfast/," my mom repeated, strain in her voice as the boundries of her delusional world were pushed against.

I didn't bother pointing out that the middle school had been completely destroyed.

"I'm not going to school," I said, as firmly and gently as possible. "I'm leaving town. I'm taking my sister and running as far away from this hellhole as possible."

My mother whirled angrily at me. "You can NOT run away from home, young man. I'll call the police."

I couldn't help it – I laughed. "/What/ police? We don't have any police anymore." I gestured at the missing wall. "This town is gone, mom. We stay here, we die. We've got maybe days before…"

"Airplane!" Ashley said giddily, pointing out the window of the wall that was still present. I glanced at her, and then followed her gaze outside, my eyes widening.

"I was wrong," I said, oddly calm. "We don't have days."

It wasn't an airplane.

TSEEEW! TSEEEW!


	29. Excommunicating

«Well, so much for that idea.»

We were hovering over the address given to us for the King household… or, at least, somewhere in the general area of the street. It was impossible to be sure – because there were no streets anymore. Houses, street signs, basketball hoops…. all completely vaporized. It wasn't your standard Earthly devastation – even nuclear weapons leave /something/ behind. This was just scorched, red dirt, everywhere.

Flapping my wings, I took to a higher altitude and circled. Everywhere, as far as the eye could see, was the same result – Yeerk Bug Fighters were destroying the entire town. «I guess the Yeerks finished evacuating everyone they cared about,» Eric noted glumly.

Then, on his heels, Ewell, oddly still in Eric's thought-speak "voice" - «I know this formation. They're performing a _Gyllkin Sin_ maneuver, establishing a circular perimeter.»

It didn't look much like a circle to me, yet, but then there were easily dozens of Bug Fighters ripping into targets of opportunity all over the place, so it was certainly possible that they just hadn't reached the edges yet. Then something caught my eagle eye on the right – the whir of a helicopter's rotors. A news crew, filming the devastation.

«Look,» I urged, "pointing" to the copter the only way my eagle body can, by banking towards it and flying a few feet in that direction.

«Why are the Yeerks just letting it film?» Eric wondered, followed immediately by his own voice giving the answer on Ewell's behalf. «Because we're done being subtle about our invasion, Eric. The Yeerks are announcing themselves to your planet in a big way.» Then, Ewell addressed me. «Think your brother got away from here before it happened?»

I considered it for a moment. «I'd already thought him dead once over the last few days,» I admitted. «I guess after being proven wrong last time, I don't even feel worried about it anymore. He made it out.» I sighed mentally. «I'm more worried about our mom. Even if by some miracle she survived everything that came before, no /way/ she survived this.» When I said it, I suddenly felt it – that acute, throbbing pain in the heart that comes with the thought that your loved one might be gone, and that even if she wasn't, it was safe to assume that she was torn with grief wondering whether /you/ were gone. Add the fact that she, unlike me, probably still had no idea what the heck was going on, and for a moment the pain was unbearable.

But only a moment. The eagle's instincts were strong in me, and the eagle knew only one thing – survival was paramount. «There'll be time to worry about all that later, though. Right now, you're right, Ewell – the Yeerks are going for Endgame, so it's time for us to take action.»

«But what do we do?» Eric wondered. «We don't want Visser One to win, obviously… but we don't want the Animorphs to completely win either, not if it means losing the Yeerks we care about.» There were a few moments' silence, where I could tell that Eric and his Yeerk were having an internal conversation, probably involving waves of affection for each other. I felt a surge of jealousy about it – that was /my/ boyfriend, and Ewell knew him in a way that I never really could, not without morphing and infesting him myself. And if I did that… would I like what I found there? What if Eric loved Ewell as much as he loved me?

Then I felt another loss pain, and I realized how much I missed Orkath, in some ways even more than I missed my mother. It didn't mean I didn't love Eric, but Orkath was just as much a part of me, and if he was still here, I'd expect Eric to accept that. So I guess I had to accept Ewell. Still… it wasn't an easy conundrum to wrestle with. If we did get our way, and the Yeerks got to stick around in a coexistent relationship, marriage counselors were going to be making a fortune.

That's what made my next move easy to figure out. «The Kandrona is still the key. The Yeerk resistance is off the table, assuming any of them even survived down there, but the Kandrona still gives whoever holds it a lot of leverage. Right now no one has any choice – Yeerk, Animorph, everyone has to kill or be killed because there's no room for middle ground. If we give the Animorphs control of our Kandrona, then they can offer surrender terms to the Yeerks.»

«Assuming the /Kandrona/ survived that mess down there,» Eric pointed out.

«I'm sure every one of those Bug Fighters has orders to scan what they're shooting and avoid anything that even /might/ be the Kandrona,» I retorted.

Ewell let out a short, disgruntled laugh. «Right, but it's in that meat truck, it's heat signature hidden. The Yeerks wouldn't have /known/ they were destroying it. And we can't call Chance now – all the cell towers in this area have been destroyed.»

I banked north. «Okay, then, that's the plan. We get /out/ of this area, up to the hospital where Craig is staying.»

«Who's Craig?» Eric and Ewell asked simultaneously. Again, no outward sign of it – just, I could tell somehow.

«An Animorph,» I replied. «Long story as to how I know, and he doesn't /know/ I know, but he'll know what his people know and we can tell him what we know, y'know?»

Eric snickered. «You made that sentence confusing on purpose,» he accused. «Okay, so we contact the Animorphs through this Craig kid. Then what? We still only have maybe two days before every Yeerk on this planet dies from Kandr….» He stopped short, looking up at a shadow that blocked out the sun – the shadow of a very large Yeerk vessel. I had only been aboard it once, when my mom's decision to send me to "summer camp" had led to a few quick deceptions and a six week stint where my Yeerk could focus completely on his own duties and not on imitating me. It was the Yeerk Mother Ship, or "Pool" ship, as they called it. And as it started to approach, I saw one of the Bug Fighters in the distance shoot down that news copter that had been filming.

«I think that point has been rendered moot, Eric.»

Silently and quickly, we flew as far away from what was left of our hometown as we could get.

* * *

By the time we got to the hospital, we were seriously wet birds. Sometimes it really seems like weather "knows" what's going on in the world, because the sudden downpour of rain after the Pool ship's arrival seemed pretty damned ominous.

We flew in through the open window. I didn't marvel at the fact that it was open despite the rain – the Animorphs would want a quick escape route, if a mission required it. Craig was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, reading a book. A history book, about World War II. Again, unsurprising, considering that he had become a soldier in a very real war.

Putting the book on his lap, he looked up at us as we landed on his bed. "Welcome back, James," he said to me with a half-smile, before glacing over at Eric's peregrine falcon morph. "You brought Jake?" he asked curiously. "Did you decide what to do about the Pool ship?"

«It's not James,» I responded, beginning my demorph to human. «Craig, I need y-»

Okay, yeah, I really should have seen what was coming next. What can I say – I was tired, I was wet, I was cranky. What I wasn't was sympathetic to what a guerilla warrior would do upon making contact with a known Controller, and there was no way that Craig didn't know at this point - my sudden disappearance a week earlier would have made him suspicious, and it would have been easy enough for him to find out from Jake.

"YEERK!" Craig yelled, grabbing an IV drip stand and sending my mostly-bird body flying across the room. Ewell, reacting mostly on instinct, took Eric's falcon body and raked Craig's arm in response, making him drop the IV stand and run out into the corridor. A nurse, having seen Craig paralyzed for years, fainted outside the door at the obviously healthy boy running down the hall, presumably for help.

«Well, that went brilliantly,» I commented, still loopy from the impact, a grotesque looking bird with miniature human feet. I reminded myself to resume demorphing, and suddenly those mini feet became full sized, and the feathers along the rest of my body sucked in.

«What do we do?» Ewell asked. «We should run, we're going to have a menagerie on us in a second!» Nevertheless, seeing that I had resumed demorphing, he began demorphing himself. On him, the growth happened before anything else, making him look like a huge four foot tall falcon. So that – a tall falcon and a naked eagle with human feet – is what the poor doctors who came to investigate the commotion saw. Needless to say, another fainted body hit the floor. The doctor who managed not to faint instead started screaming and running away.

Watching him run made up my mind for me. «We can't leave here. We've completely ruined this as a hideout for the Animorphs – they're going to run away forever, go underground. If we don't make contact right now, we'll never find them again.»

«So then what do w-» Eric asked, but he had crossed the line on his morph and his thought-speak voice cut out.

I answered anyway. "I'll stay human, try to do the diplomacy thing. You get into a battle morph in case they're not in a talking mood." My own morph complete, I grabbed one of Craig's blankets and ripped off a piece of it. I detached half the IV stand and tied the white cloth to it. Makeshift surrender flag in hand, I said a short prayer and waved it out into the hallway. "Please be kind," I muttered, stepping out…


	30. Jerryrigging

Know how you can know something conceptually, even expect it, but the reality of it all can still overwhelm you? That's what happened to me when I stepped out into the hallway. I mean, I /knew/ there would be a dangerous, vicious animal out there. I knew the Animorphs were either going to fight or hold me off while the bulk of their forces retreated.

But I still pretty much wet myself when a twelve foot long crocodile started eyeing me in that hallway, letting out this low, half-hiss half-growl to express its hostile intentions.

"Please," I said, holding up my white flag even as I backed up a few steps. "Please, I'm not here to fight."

The crocodile's only answer was another growl.

"I surrender!" I stated earnestly, waving the flag awkwardly (the IV drip rod was a little bottom-heavy). "You /have/ to accept my surrender, otherwise it's not fair!"

The crocodile let out a thought-speak laugh. «Like fairness matters to the Yeerks.» She lifted her snout. «Fine, if you surrender, exit your host body.»

I sighed, backing up. I knew as the words came out of my mouth that they weren't going to do me much good, but they were unfortunately the truth. "I can't, I'm… well, I'm not a Controller right now, there's no Yeerk in my head."

The crocodile roared angrily, as the voice, a girl's, took on a disbelieving tone, reacting as expected. «You're an uninfested human seeking out the human resistance to surrender to it? Can I just say how many different levels that seems absurd on?»

I half-laughed, a mirthless gesture with no real humor behind it since, well… my sense of humor doesn't work well with large crocodiles approaching me threateningly. "If you think that's absurd, you're gonna love the /whole/ story. But I swear it's true."

The crocodile stopped advancing, but before she could say anything else, the hallway suddenly erupted in pigeons and red-tailed hawks, over a dozen flying a strafing run towards me. "AHHHHH!" I screamed in pain, sliced open by at least three of them before I managed to drop myself to the ground. The crocodile started demorphing while most of the Animorphs flew out the hallway window or the window in Craig's room, but five of them stayed behind, circling over my head, keeping me down.

«Keep on him!» a male Animorph ordered. «Keep him down until Colette can remorph!» I presume he included me in his thought-speech in order to inform me that my getting out of this alive required me to stay still on the ground.

I was, however, not alone.

«OWWW!» one of the hawks cried, suddenly flying erratically, crashing from one wall into the next as some kind of creature latched onto it's talon and started biting. I was having a hard time looking at it, as I couldn't raise my head for more than a second without a bird flying at me, but the crocodile girl, now a human girl sprawled on the ground next to me, was helpful in identifying it. "Seriously?" she asked me. "A ferret?"

«Lamest battle morph /ever/,» the Animorph male declared, although he was certainly unable to pry the ferret off of his fellow Animorph's talon. «Hang onto him, Ray, I'll get him.»

«I'm gonna fly him outside,» the Animorph named Ray responded. «Let's see how well he hangs on when it's a hundred foot drop.»

"No!" I complained. "Eric!" I tried to get up, but was again rewarded with a slash across the face from an angry hawk, wincing in pain as I fell back to the ground.

«Relax,» Eric said to me in private thought-speak. «I'll just hang out with this guy and find out where their backup base is, maybe convince them that we're trying to help. You just meet us tomorrow night over the spot where the King house was supposed to be, got it? Tomorrow night.»

I couldn't acknowledge him, of course, unable to thought-speak in my natural form. And just then, the girl Colette must have finished her pigeon morph, because suddenly the remaining birds were gone and I was alone on the hospital floor. All I could do was go to the window and watch helplessly as the flock of birds flew off into the night, one of them carrying a ferret on his leg.

"Good luck, Eric," I whispered into the sky.

* * *

**Sub Visser Eighty-three (Orkath)**

«Is that hawk holding a ferret?» my host wondered, snapping me out of my thoughts. We were on a military truck on our way back to the Pool ship, after having just engaged the Animorphs in battle at a human military installation, ATF-1.

Sure enough, a squadron of hawks was flying overhead, one of them holding on to a ferret prey. «It can't be them,» I pointed out. «They're all hawks, for one, and we know for sure there were at least two falcons leaving the battle scene. Plus why would one of them morph a ferret instead of something that can fly?»

«I guess,» the host agreed. «So, are you still going along with the plan?»

I nodded his head habitually and, of course, pointlessly. «Yes. You have to keep up your end, though – work at least the one shift at the Pool ship's operations station, and then you can just tell someone you're delivering a report and get the hell out of there.»

«But you're keeping the cookies, why, exactly?» I glanced down to the briefcase I was holding, it was filled with chocolate chip cookies from the supermarket.

«I'd rather not explain it,» I retorted. «The less you know, the better, right? In case you're captured.»

«And what about you, if I am captured? Won't they find you easily in the Pool ship's Yeerk pool?»

I laughed. «It's not so hard to hide in the Pool. I'll be one Yeerk among thousands. Trust me.»

«Listen, Orkath… thanks for letting me go,» the host remarked sincerely. «I'll make sure someday, if my people win this war, that they know there were good and courageous Yeerks who took a stand for humans instead of just using them.»

I sighed in my host's head. «Perhaps you could tell them, also, about the human boy who made me think about humans differently…» And thus I told him the tale of the human named Christopher Windward, and the series of events that had led to us being in the Yeerk Pool at the time that it exploded.

The retelling took quite some time, and we were already walking onto the Pool ship's bridge by the time I was finished. «Wow. Orkath, that's… that's just amazing,» the host said, when I was done. «Yes. I'll make sure everyone knows.»

«Thank you.» I saluted a human boy, a bit younger than Chris but still somewhat reminiscent of him. "Urbosh Eight-Six-Two?" I asked him.

He nodded his head. "Yes, Sub-Visser."

"I'm here to relieve you," I told him. "You're being reassigned as pilot to the technical team working on the new pool's southwest dracon cannon."

"Aye, sir," the boy responded, heading towards his Bug Fighter as I took his seat on the bridge, stuffing my briefcase with the chocolate chip cookies under the desk.

«Okay, an hour's work here, and then I'll go hit the Pool and you'll be a free being again. Remember to "resist" and pretend I'm reinfesting you and come back here.»

«I get it, it'll be fine,» the host acceded. «Now show me how to operate this thing when I get back so I don't mess anything up…»

* * *

**Chance Windward**

I threw the ball again, and Erek King caught it. We'd been playing catch for a good half-hour, amused at the three dozen dogs running back and forth between us like monkeys in the middle, trying to get their mouths on the flying spheroid as it traveled.

In the distance, other Chee were taking great pains to install the Kandrona we'd delivered, setting up a Yeerk pool facility that they ensured us could be used to hold any prisoners of war. They seemed ecstatic, going on and on about how great it was to finally have a non-violent solution. Jean was looking on nervously at their efforts, but I could tell she was quite impressed at the underground park we were hiding in, and Mr. King was telling her a lot of stories about Jake's actions during the infiltration phase of the war, just generally keeping her occupied.

"Chris is never gonna believe this."


	31. Negotiating

_Author's Note: Well, the end is truly in sight. As I post this chapter, I'm putting the last touches on Chapter 33, which means I'm still 2 chapters ahead. FINALLY. :) If this keeps up - and I'm not going to utter any promises, because we know where that leads, but IF this keeps up, and I can keep reliably posting a chapter every weekend, then the story will be finished by November. Almost hard to believe. :) I have to admit, it's a little discouraging that it took me so long because Animorphs fandom has dwindled over the last ten years, like anything would when it's no longer being actively expanded by it's canon authors. So few people have made it with me from when the first chapters were new to this point. But it's for you that I'm making sure that this actually gets finished. :) _

* * *

**Craig Tozier**

We sent the others on to the safehouse.

Thankfully, Marco and Cassie had considered the possibility that our hospital headquarters could be overrun, and they were aware that many of our people were in no condition to live out in the wilderness of the Hork-Bajir valley. Too many of the kids needed electricity for breathing machines, medication, and other supports, so Marco had Ax hack into the real estate and banking systems and purchase two five bedroom houses for us, each of which we had stockpiled with enough medication and equipment to stay put for three months if necessary while figuring out where to go from there. The first of them was in our town, with a second in the Animorphs' hometown as a second backup in case the Yeerks discovered the primary backup position as well.

Unfortunately, the house in the Animorphs' hometown had been destroyed along with the rest of the town, so if the Yeerks had found the nearby one, as well, then we were in a lot of trouble.

It also meant I couldn't take the risk of flying the Controller prisoner to that house and showing him where it was.

«Ray, Erica, you two are with me. We need to take the Yeerk elsewhere while our people get everything set up.» I watched one of the pigeons and the hawk with the ferret on it's leg bank left, and followed them.

«He's going to claim to be an uninfested human,» Colette told me as she started to venture out of thought-speak range. «That's what the other one did. What a load of shit.»

«I don't know,» Ray mused. «If the Yeerks knew we were there and wanted to take us out, why would they send only two morph-capable humans to get us? Why not storm the hospital in force?»

«Simple – arrogance,» Erica sneered. «Either cause we're kids or because we're disabled, or both. They figured they could just lure us into some lame trap and make sure they preserved the morph-capable host bodies.»

«Alright, Yeerk,» I said, including him in my thought speech, «you want to save us a whole bunch of trouble and just let go?»

«A thousand feet in the air?» the Yeerk asked incredulously. «You're not /that/ mean, are you?»

«Well, we're in no position to free the human host,» I reasoned, «and I'm sure he'd rather be dead than a Controller, so… it's either you can drop to your doom or you can feel what it's like to get eaten by a red-tail. The way Tobias tells it, even when he tries to make it quick for his prey, it's not always pretty.»

«What if the Yeerk left my head and we talked about it human to human?» the Yeerk asked, surprising me.

«Oh, so you're going to admit that you /can/ leave your host?» Erica asked. «Why didn't your friend, then?»

«Because he's not a Controller,» the Yeerk responded. «He used to be, but he lost his Yeerk when the pool exploded.»

«Uh huh,» I said skeptically. «I knew that kid – he was a good friend of mine, before he was infested. And I heard his Yeerk was some big shot Sub-Visser or something. So I think it's more likely that he said no because he was an involuntary host, and you're amenable to it because your host is a collaborator.»

It was a few seconds before the Yeerk responded. «Okay, got me there. I really don't have any way of disproving that theory. But we should still land and talk, because you can't disprove /my/ claim either. And either way, you really need to hear what I have to say.»

I considered my options. «Fine. Let's do lunch, then. You follow my orders one hundred percent, though, cause at the first sign of trouble, we're done talking. Got it?»

«Got it,» the Yeerk assured me.

«Okay, then. Ray, you land and let the Yeerk get off you, then fly back to the safehouse and wait for us.» Switching to private thought-speak, I added to Ray, «Actually, you circle around a block, morph to leopard, and get ready to charge in on my orders.»

«Got it,» Ray told me, diving.

«Yeerk, you demorph to human,» I ordered.«I'll do the same. Then you give me the Yeerk and it stays in my pocket for the duration of our conversation. Erica, you don't demorph until I've got the Yeerk, okay?»

«Fine,» the Yeerk – or I guess, from context, the Yeerk's host – replied. «But you don't harm my Yeerk during the conversation, and you give him back to me either way. We part company amicably one way or the other.»

«That's unexpected,» I remarked privately to Erica. «Opinion?»

«Could be genuine,» Erica remarked as we landed in the alley. «But remember – the Yeerks are morph-capable now. Maybe this host is a Yeerk nothlit himself, using his new human body to breed trust with us because we wouldn't be so quick to mistrust a fellow human.»

«You'd think walking the proverbial mile in our shoes would change his outlook, in that case,» I noted.

Erica snorted. «Uh huh. How many kids have come through the hospital with a broken leg and just gone right back to treating us like dirt once their injuries were healed? People don't change, Craig, you know that.»

«I guess.» I watched Ray fly off, and I watched as a human-Controller boy emerged from the Yeerk ferret. A dirty blonde, blue-eyed kid, about my age. «Hmph. You'd think they'd have sent an adult.»

«What does it matter?» Erica remarked. «A morph-capable host body doesn't need any kind of strength in it's natural form to be formidable, and the Yeerk is probably adult.»

I started my own demorph. Erica stayed perched on the dumpster, poised to attack if necessary. Or at least attack as much as a pigeon can, which isn't much. It was a shame Erica hadn't taken Tobias' hawk body for her transit morph.

Once both the Yeerk host and I had demorphed, the boy stuck out his hand for me to shake. "Eric Campbell, and Ewell Five-Nine-Three of the Sulp Niar pool. Both pleased to meet you."

I nodded, but didn't take the offered hand. "Craig Tozier. No touching, if you don't mind – it wouldn't do to have a human-Controller out there with the ability to morph my body."

Eric bit his lip, lowering his hand. "Fair enough." his Yeerk sighed. "Well, I guess I'll just get out of this body and leave you and Eric alone for a bit." He closed his eyes, and then I began to see the sign of the Yeerk slug slithering out of the human ear. Eric held his hand out to catch it as it fell out.

I reached for the Yeerk, but Eric held up his other hand to stop me. "You heard his name," he said forcefully. "Ewell Five-Nine-Three of the Sulp Niar pool. Not 'Yeerk', not just some slug. A person with an identity, and my friend." Only then did he reach out and hold out Ewell for me to take. "Prove to him that humans can keep their word."

I took Ewell and pocketed him, gingerly, although my crappy skintight morphing outfit probably made him a little cramped in there. " I never gave my word that he'd come out of this alive, Eric. But… I'm willing to listen." I looked up at Erica. "Find a house with an open window and nobody home. We'll borrow it for now." I gestured towards the street. "Come, Eric. We'll talk as we walk."

By the time Erica had found accommodations for us, Eric had told me the story of how he and Chris had started dating and how it had led to his infestation. The story added a little credibility for me, since, of course, I knew from my little sexual experimentation sessions with Chris during our time in the Cub Scouts that it was very possible that he was gay, even though I had personally just gone along for the new experiences and was pretty sure that I was straight, or at least mostly straight. He told me about the Yeerk peace movement, which I had heard the basics about from Cassie, and how they had used his proximity to Chris in order to become morph-capable.

"Now," Eric finished, "we're trying to find an amicable solution for everybody. We in the Free Controllinists movement have come to care somewhat deeply for our Yeerks, and we now have a way for them to break away from Visser One without starving to death, as well as any other Yeerks that can be captured or convinced to rebel against the Visserarchy."

"How is that possible?" I asked earnestly.

"We have one of the Earth-based Kandrona," Eric replied. "We want to give it to the Animorphs, give them the ability to take Yeerk prisoners and support their Yeerk allies."

I took a few moments to digest his words. "That's... well, that's interesting." Actually, I had no clue what the hell it meant, but it sounded important. "I'd have to discuss it with Jake, of course. And while I'm inclined to believe you, I still can't trust you with the location of either my own base camp or Jake's."

Eric nodded. "I expected as much," he conceded. "Chris will have contacted his brother by now to find out where the Kandrona is. The plan is to meet him tomorrow night at the Kandrona's last known location and go together to find it from there." He held up his hands. "I won't set any conditions. It can be just you and me, or you and me and Jake, or all the Animorphs, whatever you guys want. We go, we meet Chris, we find and recover the Kandrona, and we work it out from there." He sighed. "I won't lie to you, it's inside the Yeerk blast perimeter, so it won't be the safest place to go."

I took Ewell out. "Then this Yeerk is our guarantee. We take it back to our camp, and we don't release it back to your custody until we're all safely back with the Kandrona."

Eric frowned. "Why do you need a hostage?" he asked. "And why Ewell instead of me?"

I shrugged. "Simple. He can't see in his natural state, so if we bring him somewhere secure, we don't need to worry about him revealing that location later. And holding him guarantees that you, at least, won't try anything funny." I held the Yeerk out to him. "Here, put him back in and let him know the terms, see if he agrees."

Eric put the Yeerk to his ear and it immediately started pushing it's way in. I couldn't help but watch, fascinated, at the process, and at how Eric just sat there, staring blankly, for almost a full minute afterwards while they had their internal conversation.

Finally, Eric's body spoke again, with Ewell talking. "I agree to your terms, Craig," the Yeerk stated. "Chris believed you to be a friend; I will trust you because I trust _him_."

I nodded. "Fair enough." I waited for the Yeerk to again disengage and be placed in my hands before speaking again. "Alright, we meet back here an hour before sunset tomorrow, and you take us to the Kandrona. Erica will escort you to the edge of town and, once we're sure that you can't follow us, you'll be free to go."

Eric nodded somberly, looking at the Yeerk in my hand. "I'll be back for you," he whispered gently to it, before getting up. Erica remorphed to her pigeon morph and rested on Eric's shoulder, and the two of them left. I waited until they were a short distance away and morphed to hawk, carrying Ewell in my talons to the safehouse.

When I got there, James and Cassie were waiting for me. I demorphed and carried Ewell into the house.

"Who's that?" said Cassie, gesturing to the Yeerk. "Is that one of the ones responsible for you guys falling back?"

"It's a bit more complicated than that," I explained to her. "Long story short, though, yeah, his arrival caused things there to get a little reckless, and.. well, if the bulk of the Yeerks didn't know we were there before he arrived, they do now."

Cassie seemed about to ask more, but James put an arm on her shoulder. "We can leave a few people behind to guard the safehouse and deal with the Yeerk, but right now we have more pressing matters to attend to." He looked right at me. "The Taxxons are being used to dig a new Yeerk pool, Craig. We're going in to stop them."

"Awesome!" Ray called out, eager for action.

Timmy, rocking back and forth in his natural, palsied body, said "Go… good to… kick the.. THEM out."

Colette snickered. "Yeah, I want to get to /use/ the croc this time."

James gave encouraging smiles to the other Animorphs. "Guess I have a few volunteers," he told Cassie. "I think we can scrounge up a few more, although with the evacuation we need to at least leave Erica and Craig here to get things set up here."

"Hey, you're going without me?" I objected.

James gestured to Ewell. "Well, you have that… /thing/ to take care of, right? I can't wait to hear that story when I get back."

In the end, it was decided that James, Colette, Timmy, Juan, Kelly, Ray, Tricia and Connor would go to help Jake's group deal with the Taxxons. They morphed with Cassie and flew off, leaving the rest of us to prepare a plan for meeting with Chris and Eric.

* * *

**Cassie Godfrey**

We were flying towards the new Yeerk Pool. Jake had ordered the Primary Animorphs to approach in bat morph so that, when we got closer, we could come in at different angles and get the lay of the land before launching the first wave of the attack. James and the rest of the Auxiliary Animorphs were supposed to come in as second wave, so they were following behind in their regular transit morphs, while the Hork-Bajir were force marching along the ravine from their colony.

While we were still in range of the Auxiliary Animorphs, James asked Ray to explain to us the basics of what had gone on at the hospital and afterwards with Craig, Erica and the Yeerks.

Privately, he included to me, «We can't be totally sure the three of them weren't taken, Cassie. It's unlikely, because Craig was calling the shots to the Yeerk when he left the hospital, but it could still have been a trap somehow. We need to watch Ray during the battle for signs of being a Controller.»

«We'll know as soon as we get there,» I noted wryly. «If he's a Controller, he'll warn the Yeerks as soon as we get to the pool.» I felt a surge of guilt for not telling Jake about what was going on with James' people. It was tactically important information, to know they'd been compromised and forced to flee the hospital, not to mention the remote but real possibility of Ray's capture. But Jake was already on overload dealing with General Doubleday and the Taxxons and how to handle capturing the Pool ship. Besides, James wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know - I had already discussed the possibilities with Marco and he had said the risk was negligible. He was much more concerned about what was going on with Ax and the approaching Andalite fleet, and we had already agreed to keep /that/ from Jake until the time was right, so this was just par for the course.

So I listened, as Ray explained to me and James about the two morph-capable humans, Chris and Eric, who had come to the hospital looking for Craig. How Chris had claimed to no longer be a Controller and Eric had claimed to be a member of the peace movement, along with Ewell. And how they had a Kandrona that they wanted to turn over to us.

«It was weird,» Ray finished. «I mean, I was in leopard morph spying, so I couldn't really see his face, but he /sounded/ so sincere. And he absolutely loved that Yeerk – he was heartbroken when we took it away with us.»

«You're not having second thoughts about going after them tonight, are you Ray?» James asked warily. «You seemed eager to come on the mission.»

Ray responded without hesitation, «No way, man. That kid may have been nice, but there's no way I'm letting Visser One build a pool in MY backyard. I'm not a good swimmer anyway.»

We had a chuckle on that joke, and then I was sure that Ray wasn't a Controller. A Yeerk might have played up Ray's eagerness for combat, but no Yeerk would casually drop Visser One's name like that. So I didn't voice any objections. Marco told me to catch up with the lead group so Jake could brief us on the plan, and I flew on. And said goodbye to Ray. For the last time.


	32. Coping

**Christopher Windward**

I slept under a bridge that night. You'd think I'd have been unhappy – my boyfriend was captured by the Animorphs, and I was likely walking into a trap on the following evening. But after morphing and demorphing to heal the injuries from the hospital, I had managed to place a phone call to my brother. He was alright, the Kandrona was alright, and I knew he'd be meeting me along with Eric tomorrow, and apparently "with a guarantee that everything would be fine". He wouldn't get more specific than that – he said I'd have to see it to believe it.

So I wasn't unhappy. A little melancholy, though. I missed Eric. I missed Orkath. I missed the simple days of life before the war, even the simple days of just being a Controller in middle school. But I was pretty sure that, very soon, life was going to be normal again. Or normalish. One way or the other, I knew we were close to resolving everything, and I knew I was one of the key players in deciding how everything was going to go down.

So I guess, if I'm really honest, I was also feeling a little proud of myself. It actually crossed my mind that I might end up in a history book somewhere over what happened in the next few days, and I went to sleep imagining some poor kids listening to my name in class and not paying attention, or maybe, because I was a kid like them, paying just a little more attention than they did to stories of Paul Revere or Frederick Douglas.

Probably not. Jake was probably going to hog all the spotlight anyway.

* * *

**Jake Berenson**

I slept in a field a few miles south of the camp, the meeting with Arbron still fresh in my head. Tomorrow I would fly in at first light and tell the other Animorphs, and the whole dynamic of the war would change. But I was exhausted, and it was dangerous to fly the remaining distance to the camp tonight. The Yeerks could still have had a tail on me from the Taxxon tunnels, or I could be spotted by a patrol on my way in. Better to rest for the night.

My thoughts drifted quite a bit as I started to fall asleep under the stars. I thought about Cassie, and my suspicions that the Taxxon defection was going to be a lot less of a surprise to her than it would be to the others. I was already seeing her decision to let Tom take the morphing cube in an entirely new light, one that I suspect was in the back of her mind from the beginning.

Which made me think of the other morph-capable Yeerks. I'd been expecting to have to fear every errant squirrel I ran across, but it seemed like, a few battle morphs aside, the Yeerks hadn't really gotten the hang of all the possibilities that morphing should be opening up to them. And I started to wonder if it wasn't just because, perhaps, all the different emotional perspectives of their various animal morphs were altering their culture in unexpected ways.

For a few moments, my mind wandered to that gay kid from my old school. Chris Windward. I had seen him morphing at the battle with the National Guard troops, and his Yeerk had addressed me in thought-speak, so I knew he was one of the human-Controllers who'd been given the morphing power. If any Yeerk had seemed unaffected, ethically, by the morphing power, it had been him. He'd been just as ruthless and arrogant, and only my superior experience with my morph had kept him from killing me.

Still… his host was a reasonably bright kid, and the Yeerk had access to all his memories, so the fact remained – why /hadn't/ they ever tried to just follow us back to camp, or hop on one of us as a flea? Could they really have just not thought of it yet, including their hosts? Or were they enjoying the freedom of their animal forms so much that, subconsciously, they didn't /want/ to find us?

I was missing something. I wasn't sure what, and ultimately I didn't think it was a key factor in winning the war, but someday, if things went my way, I was going to find that kid and ask him. Just for the shits and giggles of it.

Assuming, of course, he was still alive.

* * *

**Eric Campbell**

I was assuming that he was still alive, of course. Not a horrible assumption – none of his injuries at the hospital had seemed severe, and even if our visit had tipped off any other Animorph or Yeerk factions, it would have taken them too long to get to the hospital before he left. Still, there's being 99.9% sure of something and being 100% sure of it, and sometimes the gulf of difference between the two is enough to fill The Grand Canyon.

I was sleeping in the very house in which I was to meet the Animorphs. They had chosen well – apparently the actual owner was a member of the National Guard and was probably mobilized over everything that was going on. The evening news program was doing a story on the military response to the Yeerk invasion, and what was interesting about it was that the interviewer was asking the general on the feed some fairly pointed questions that implied knowledge of the Animorphs' existence. I suppose some former human-Controller must have gotten out of the city before it was quarantined and been able to give the station a full briefing regarding what had been going on, because they seemed very knowledgeable. At one point they even mentioned Jake by name, which of course prompted the general to deny, with conviction, that any such person was serving in the military at this time.

A very suspicious denial, since how would the general be /so/ sure that none of the thousands of soldiers under his command carried that particular name? "They know more than they're letting on," I murmured to myself.

* * *

**Cassie Godfrey**

"He knows more than he's letting on," James whined, tossing the bottle of vodka angrily against the wall of the cabin. "I'm… I'm gonna squish him. I'm gonna make that Yeerk pay. For Ray." He giggled drunkenly. "Pay for Ray. Hah. That rhymes. He'd have liked that." He glanced up at me. "Did Jake rhyme?"

I closed my eyes, taking a moment to push aside my own grief. It was just too hard to focus on this conversation at all, not with Jake gone. Jake. Gone. Dead. How could that happen? How could that have been the result?

But I couldn't get lost in my misery. There was still a war to win, and this formerly disabled kid was the best candidate we had for taking up Jake's mantle of leadership. He already commanded seventeen of the Animorphs anyway.

No. No, sixteen, I reminded myself. Ray hadn't made it either. Which was why the new best hope for humanity was lying drunk on my floor. He didn't know how to go back to the safe house and face the grief of his friends. Marco had led the other Auxiliary Animorphs back in his stead.

"You do know that all the alcohol in your system is just going to be dissolved by the morphing process, right?" I pointed out.

James looked up at me with bleary, bloodshot eyes. "How d'you know?" he slurred at me.

I let out a sad laugh. "Please. Three years of this and you think we've never gotten blind drunk about it before?" I smirked, giggling a little bit as I sniffled a tear away. "I remember the first time, when we were thirteen. After David. Rachel and Ax were messed up over… well, what we had to do. They'd had to do. So Marco decided, 'Hey, we should show him the human custom for dealing with fucked up shit like that, right?' He showed up at my barn that night with two bottles of Tequila and Erek, you know, just in case he had to put up a hologram for our parents or something like that." I sighed. Erek. I missed him, too. "You should have seen it. Ax isn't that good at walking in human morph /sober/, much less with three shots of tequila in him. It was like he and Jake were competing to see who could fall over more." The memory brought me a smile, but imagining Jake again, healthy and happy (well, drunken happy) was starting to bring the tears forward again.

James could tell. He pulled himself up and wobbled over to me, wrapping his arms around me. "Shhh. It'll be okay, Cassie. You'll see. We'll make that Yeerk pay."

* * *

**Craig Tozier**

«I'm gonna make that Yeerk pay.»

I stood in front of the bowl that had Ewell in it, holding my hands outward. Facing me, teeth bared, was Timmy, in his bobcat morph. He was in morph because he wanted the flexibility that he didn't have in his natural form. Flexibility and /teeth/.

"No," I insisted. "This isn't the way, Timmy. We have a deal."

Timmy responded by letting out a roar that probably woke up half the neighborhood. «A deal. With /them/? How can you talk about deals, Craig? Ray is DEAD, do you understand? He took a Dracon Beam to the head tonight. One of those THINGS killed him, and you can stand there and defend it?»

I took a deep breath, stifling the pain I, too, was feeling for Ray. "This Yeerk was here all night, Timmy. It wasn't involved in the fight that killed Ray."

«Ray would still be alive if it weren't for his people,» Timmy retorted angrily.

I shrugged. "Ray would still be in a wheelchair if it weren't for his people," I countered. "I think if you could ask him, Ray would tell you that the few months of freedom he had were worth it, don't you? I know that if death comes for me in one of these battles, that's the way I'll feel."

Timmy didn't say anything further. He just stalked away and sprawled himself across the living room couch before beginning to demorph. Erica came over to me and put her arms around me.

"That was close," she whispered, once she was sure that Timmy's hearing had returned to human normal.

I nodded, sighing. "Hmph. Who'd have believed this morning I would be trying to keep a Yeerk alive long enough to return it to its host. It's like the whole world's turned upside down."

I glanced down at her, and suddenly she was leaning up and kissing me fiercely and I was kissing her back. She smiled at me when she broke the kiss. "Sometimes the changes are good, right?" she quipped, poking my nose and walking away from me.

"Hmph," I repeated, and I could feel the ridiculously wide grin on my own face.


End file.
